Armoured Storm: Ding dong at El Ramalama...

Over the last few months Phil has enjoyed playing the odd game of Armoured Storm against me and Andy, and after several victories as the Deutsches Afrika Korps expressed an interest in trying out an Italian force(!) After painting one up it was time to see how well they'd fare against the might of the 8th Army...

The scenario postulated the Italians retreating after El Alamein with the British hot on their heels and then finding their route to safety cut off by a small British armoured force outside the Egyptian village of El Ramalama.

The rulebook did not include the stats for two of the Italian AFV's I had painted up so using a vague comparison to other tanks in Armoured Storm I came up with these.

West of El Ramalama two troops of Matilda IIs deployed to try and cut off the Italian retreat...

Their M13/40s making haste towards the mirage of safety...

One Italian platoon to the south of the main road, two to the north.

The southern platoon soon came up against a troop of Matildas...

With a second British troop deployed on a hill to the north of El Ramalama...

...watching the Italian armour trundling towards them.

Blimey! More Italian armour - a platoon of Semovente 75/18s! They pack a punch...

Battle is joined south of the village as close quarters as the M13/40s crest the ridge and exchange fire with the British tanks. One Italian brewed up and two were damaged (and unable to now fire until repaired), but critically one Matilda was also damaged reducing the British firepower by 25%.

The short range battle continued seeing the damaged Matilda succumb to Italian tank fire whilst the two damaged M13/40s were destroyed...

Another exchange of fire saw the Italians wiped out - but at the cost of a second Matilda. This left only two British tanks on the southern flank...

As the powerfully armed Semoventes advanced towards them!

To the north another M13/40 platoon pushed forward...

Cresting the hill they poured fire into a Matilda which brewed up!

The aggressive Italians moving into close range then taking out the remaining Matildas! The northern flank was now undefended! 

To the south the Semoventes pushed forward...

Past the burning hulks of their comrades towards the remaining two British tanks - where were the British who had been chasing the Italians?

Huzzah! The chasing Crusaders arrived, bombing down the road trying to catch the Italians up.

The third M13/40 platoon moved past the minefield to the undefended northern flank. Could they reach safety before the Crusaders caught them up?

Fast tanks, the Crusaders were able to move 50% more on a road than the Italians. Would that be enough to catch them up?

Probably not so the British lead troop took a short cut through the minefield(!) one of the Crusaders hitting a mine and becoming damaged. Despite this desperate gambit the two M13/40 platoons north of the village were too near safety to be caught and escaped.

Meanwhile to the south the Semoventes got in amongst the two remaining Matildas and brewed both of them up! The British delaying force was now all wiped out, it would be up to the pursuing Crusaders to stop the retreating Italians.

A platoon of CV3/33 CC tankettes who had been left behind but made a reckless charge against a third troop of Crusaders...

Forcing them to fall retreat so the tankettes didn't get into an effective close range!

Back at El Ramalama the Crusaders burst through the village in a desperate attempt to catch the Semoventes...

But their fire was ineffective and the Semoventes 75/18s joined the two M13/40 platoons in escaping the British trap!

Another fun game of Armoured Storm which certainly rewarded Phil's aggressive approach with the Italians - there was no point trying to engage the heavily armoured Matildas at range, you need to get in close and personal! I was a tad unlucky in my secret roll as to what turn the chasing Crusaders would turn up as it proved impossible for them to catch the Italians up, if we rerun the scenario I might have them appear from the northern roads to make it more challenging for the retreating Italians.

Chain of Command: The Probe at Quelquepart...

Earlier this month Andy, Phil and myself played the Probe scenario from Chain of Command 2 with Jack umpiring to get some practice in doing that before Winter Wonder Lard VI...

The Probe is quite a tough scenario for the attacker having to get a section off the board and defeat the enemy with a countdown kicking in after two (mandatory for the German when they got six Chain of Command points) turn ends.

The British (Phil and I) deployed two sections on the right, with a third on the left. With no sign of the Hun, the troops moved cautiously forward...

The 2" mortar laying down a blanket of smoke in front of the farmhouse to the British front.

Armoured support coming in the form of a Universal Carrier!

The Germans, commanded by Andy, deployed...

Though their visibility was hampered by the smoke laid down by the British mortar.

As the third British section began to move up on the left, Andy rolled a sixth Chain of Command point signalling a Turn End. 

Amongst the effects of that one is that all smoke dissipates and the lovely British smoke screen immediately disappeared leaving the advancing troops suddenly very visible to two German sections (each with an MG42) and an MG42 MMG in the farmhouse!

The British fired one of its remaining smoke rounds to try and recreate the cover but the German Machinegewher characteristic, combined with the Storm of Steel attribute allowing them to re-roll sixes was devastating.

The impact of the Turn End and the removal of the smoke screen effectively killed the game - and to be honest I'm unsure of the logic around this happening. Chain of Command is lauded about "playing the period not the rules" but this is a very gamey mechanic and I am not sure what it is trying to recreate. I get smoke screens might gradually thin and dissipate but why should they suddenly disappear leaving advancing troops exposed as happened?

The other issue is the amount of firepower the defenders bring to the table. In this game the Germans had three MG42 lmg's (though only deployed two) plus a tripod mounted MMG one - covering an area of 160 metres, which by historical standards seems generous(?). Once the smoke disappeared with the British now exposed it was impossible to move forward as it was a killing ground.

The way the game ended was extremely disappointing as until the Turn End it had been quite enjoyable with the British beginning to move forward under the cover of their smokescreen and the Germans trying to create lines of fire to target the advancing enemy.

Finally Chain of Command fans often trot out that it is better when games are played as part of a campaign not just one off games as players need to minimise casualties as troops will be needed subsequently. This may well be the case but not everyone has time (or inclination) to play campaigns. Maybe there should be some penalty on the defender (in this case) forcing them to take this into account, such as casualties potentially impacting their Force Morale?

Western Desert: 132ª Divisione corazzata "Ariete"

Back to WW2 and the Western Desert as a third force is added to our games of Armoured Storm - the Italians! All models are 3D prints from Butlers Printed Models - the high resolution resin, it is more expensive but worth it I think...

The bulk of the new force are M13/40 tanks, three platoons of five with a HQ tank.

There is also a platoon of the StuG-like Semovente da 75/18 self-propelled guns...

...and a platoon of L3/33 CC, the L3 tankette armed with Solothurn 20 mm anti-tank rifle. Not sure what use these will be against Crusaders and Matildas but more use than the twin MG basic variant!

Armoured Storm: First Clash at El Wadi Sha Wadi

Over the summer Andy and I tried out Dan Mersey's quick play WW2 tank game Armoured Storm using my collection of 6mm North Africa campaign tanks - and found it to be a huge amount of fun, with some very interesting tactical challenges.

The rules are pretty straight forward, most tanks have the same movement distances (unless Matildas which are very slow, or Crusaders which are fast on roads) and you use a D10 for hits and penetration, the challenge is with the Tactics phase when you use your Tactics Tokens (Germans have five, the British four) to chose what orders you want to employ in the turn - the key is whether you focus on what you want to do, or try and prevent the enemy from doing what they want by selecting the orders that would benefit them

There is no points system and for basic games you have a German company of three five tank platoons plus a couple of HQ tanks. The base core unit is the platoon.

Whilst the British have five three tanks platoons plus HQ tanks...

HQ tanks can operate independently - but will use up an order - or attached to a platoon for as long as you like...

The game uses 'measurement distances' so the rules can be used with different scale miniatures. 15mm miniatures use a measurement distance of 15cm, 6mm uses 5cm (I have subsequently made up some 'old school' red/white measuring sticks in 5cm bands which makes life much easier than a tape measure). This means most tanks move 10cm a turn which initially we felt was probably too slow but turned out to be perfect.

Firing is up to ten measurement distances (so 50cm in 6mm) and you need to roll equal to or higher on a D10 (a ten always hitting, a one always missing) to the range band with the usual modifiers for AFV size, rages is hull down, if you have chosen the Good Shooting tactic). If you hit you then see if your shot has penetrated the armour comparing your Penetration factor at the range you are shooting to the armour rating. If it is equal to or high you roll a D10 on the Penetrating Shot table for the effect, if it is lower on the Non-Penetrating Shot table.

You are more likely to knock out an enemy tank with a Penetrating Shot, but a Non-Penetrating Shot can Damage an enemy tank and two of those will knock it out - the Recover tactic allows you to repair damaged tanks which is useful to prevent your opponent finishing them off but it takes one of your valuable order tokens which you could have been using for firing at the enemy - choices!

So for our first game we played a straight forward encounter in the desert with both sides advancing towards each other...

The Crusaders had the better of things to start with, the PzIII's struggling to penetrate the Crusader frontal armour at longer ranges.

The Crusader's were more effective...

Having damaged a couple of Crusaders (meaning they were unable to fire until repaired) the Germans pushed forward to close the firing ranges to a more effective one for them.

One platoon of Crusaders pushed towards the German flank...

Brewing up one of the PzIII's.

However the Germans overloaded the British right, sweeping one platoon behind the line of Crusaders...

...destroying one of the Crusader platoons. The loss of a platoon sees you lose a Tactic Token which impacts your ability to get your remaining tanks to do things. With larger platoons than the British this gives the Germans an advantage which reflects their superior tactical ability in the Desert War.

The British did manage to recover slightly...

And rushed a platoon from their left flank to the centre.

But were not quite able to wipe out an enemy tank platoon to inflict a Tactic Token loss on the Germans.

The reinforcing platoon rushing towards the centre...

Unfortunately left its flank exposed to a third advancing PzIII platoon...

And with the Germans having the advantage of an additional Tactic Token over the British, the end result was inevitable!

With the PzIII's pushing forward it was clear that the 8th Army had suffered another setback in the desert...

The end of the game seeing several burning Crusaders scattered across the battlefield!

All in all Armoured Storm is a great little game. It is not a fully blown combined arms WW2 game, but does not pretend to be (although there are rules in the Western Desert and Eastern Front books to include the likes of airstrikes, infantry, AT guns, minefields etc). It would be unfair however to label it a beer and pretzels game as the Tactics Board gives it a nuance that most simple games don't have.

If you have a collection of tanks in any scale from 15mm to 6mm I'd recommend picking up a copy of Armoured Storm and getting them on the table for a fun evening