Arnhem Second Lift - Battle Report

A short while ago, over two consecutive Friday nights, the AHLL group fought the battles around the dropzones at Arnhem on the 17th September 1944. The was a major play test of the rules system we’ve been designing and the chance for one of the group to filed figures he’d painted years ago but never fielded.

Here’s what happened!

Both sides got the following briefing.

Background
It is the second day of Operation Market Garden, September 1944. The first drop of British paratroops landed yesterday but things have not gone to plan. The north end of Arnhem road bridge has been captured but only a small force managed to reach the bridge. The rail bridge was blown by German defenders who are more numerous and better organised than expected. Urqhart is missing presumed dead or captured and the radios aren’t working so nobody knows what is going on and allied air support is uncontactable. Whilst the parachute brigade tries to battle towards the bridge to reinforce Frost’s command, the glider borne troops must hold the landing grounds to enable the 2nd lift due this morning to bring the division up to almost full strength. The Germans rush everything they can scramble and attack!

Arnhem 2nd Lift Map. North at the top. Each overlaid square is 12" by 12"

We got the table put together and organised the forces the night before. Before any figures went on the table it looked like this.

Looking north over the Neider Rhine with Renkum in the near ground and gliders from the first drop on LZ-X

1 inch on the tabletop represented 100 years and each turn about an hour.

The battle is pretty big with lots of formations on both sides. Some of the British battalions were very large and given the size were split into several formations to reflect the operational approach taken on the day. Some of the arriving troops were down scaled in size to support playability.

British Briefing
You must hold the three key landing grounds DZ-Y where paratroops will jump, LZ-X where two glider formations will land and LZ-S where another glider borne force is due. Out of nowhere German units have appeared and they are attacking! Fortunately they don’t seem to have too many armoured vehicles – but there are a lot of infantry!
Push the enemy back, destroy any AA units you see and hold the landing grounds!
Initial British Forces
4 formations infantry with armoured jeep support. Very limited artillery support off table.
2 are veteran, two are regular, jeeps adopt quality of unit they attach to.
British Reinforcements
The British player dices for the arrival time of the incoming troops starting at turn 5. Whilst all forces historically arrived together for the game they would be split. The supply drop by Stirling’s was excluded from the scenario.
Airlanding Turn 1
DZ-Y in the first turn the airlanding begins. 3 Bns parachute troops.
Airlanding Turn 2
Elements of air landing brigade, gliderborne, 1 bn on LZ-X
Airlanding Turn 3
Elements of air landing brigade, gliderborne, 1 bn on LZ-S
Airlanding Turn 4
Elements of air landing brigade, gliderborne, all land on LZ-X

German Briefing

Harry the enemy! Hit him and hit him again. The British are due to land more troops this morning. Your best chance is to hurt them before they can organise. Grab whatever you can get your hands on, anybody who can carry a gun and attack! If the enemy lands you must hold the line.
German Forces

7 infantry formations, 1 veteran, 3 inexperienced - two of which are badly officered. Some off table artillery and limited air support. The Germans also had a number of AFVs an AA units available to cross attach.

Game Duration and Victory Conditions
The game ends at the discretion of the German player as long as it is the end of a turn. It may finish no earlier than one turn after the arrival of the last British airborne forces.
At the end of the game points would be awarded for removing or killing ground units with Brits counting for more than Germans.

The Brits had to beat the German score.

The Game Itself
We had 4 players and so split 2 German and 2 Brits. I was one of the Germans and so this report will be heavily focussed on the German view of the battle.

The table all laid out looking south from the north table edge. Drop zone DZ-Y is the lighter patch on the near right

Initial placements saw the British place their troops in DZ-Y and LZ-X. The Germans came on from along the north and western table edges.
Pretty soon the Germans had begun skirmishing around DZ-Y. This would be the location of most and the bloodiest fights during the game. 

First Contact!

The Brits deployed to cover LZ-X but leave LZ-S virtually undefended!

The Germans pushed closer and closer!

DZ-Y comes under attack from the north.

The British rolled really badly for the arrival of their reinforcements. Whilst the Germans just kept on pushing.

German infantry pushing the Brits hard

The Germans attack at LZ-X!

The Germans begin to make inroads - British losses mount, the heaths begin to burn, flanks are turned.

Where oh where are those aircraft?

One part of the SS Wach Battalion has had enough. You can just see some of it disappearing on the left.

The British get stuck in at LZ-X. It turns out that half the British force on the table has been pinned in place by the SS Wach Battalion 3, a formation that could be argued is the worst unit fielded by the Germans on the western front. It doesn’t take long and they break and run. LZ-X is secured.

Here comes trouble! 3 battalions of paras!

Finally the airlift arrives. Bang on time historically, but maybe a bit late for the Brits?

The sky fills with parachute canopies

Watch out for the burning heath!

We call the other landing zones. Landings at LZ-X would be unopposed, whilst landings at LZ-S were clearly going to be very badly chewed up. The Paras landing at DZ-Y were going to have to fight!

And they fought very hard.

Very hard indeed.

And we called it - a German victory.

Aftermath

Looking back on it I think the British players should have done a few things differently. The placement of their troops was very conservative - understandable given the size of the enemy they were facing, but it didn't create any challenge for the Germans. Greater use should have been made of detachments further forward - vulnerable to be sure - but this was a game about holding ground to buy time. 

I don't think the Brits were aggressive enough, particularly at LZ-X. This allowed the Germans free rein over their concentrations on the battlefield and allowed us to attack with numbers where we wanted.

The Brits appalling dice rolls for the arrival of their reinforcements clearly didn’t help and given the historical situation it was very tough for the Brits to win. They did better on the day than the British players did and Arnhem was still lost. 

All very easy for me to say - most of my units (SS Wach I'm looking at you!) routed off the board.

However, the game played out very well, the rules stood up well to the playtest and both sides enjoyed it. The game looked amazing and we’d all be happy to give the scenario another shot.
Enjoy your gaming!

Charles the Modeller

French Village and Town

As I mentioned in my last blog post, on the various scales in use on the tabletop, I prefer to use buildings on a smaller scale than my figures. As I spend most of my time with 6mm or 1/300 figures I go for 2mm or 1/1000 scale buildings. I love the designs from Brigade Models who have a wide and growing range to choose from.

I am in the middle of painting and basing a scarily large number of buildings, including Russian villages, city blocks and a pick 'n' mix selection for Frost's defence of Arnhem bridge. I'll post on those another time.

I'll start with some shots of a Normandy/ French village and expand it to become a small town. The buildings come from a range of sets including the Normandy village, Railway and English village sets by brigade models. I placed some very confused Russians by Adler and GHQ, on 32mm by 32mm bases, in the photos to give you a sense of size.

I have based the models on plasticard that is cut to multiples of the base sizes we use in the AHLL rules we're designing. This way we know exactly how many units can benefit from cover and concealment in any given town or village. It also allows me to change the village configuration easily and means we are not fighting over the same village every time it comes out.

The walls are strips of 1x2mm plastic cut to size, the trees are scratch built using twisted copper wire and  coarse turf foam foliage. I cover the base with a very thin smattering of Basetex, dry brushed several times and finished with a brown inkwash.

By adding more models I turn a village into a town. I've included some terraced houses and the factory set, including the large power station from Brigades industrial buildings.

Again all the models are based on multiples of the miniatures base sizes.

Here's a view of a game, with the Germans trying to defend a town (very successfully actually) with models placed in and on the town.

I'm still finishing off more buildings which I'll use to expand the town further and upgrade it to a city. When I'm done I'll post more pics.

Happy gaming!

Charles the Modeller

In wargaming and terrain its all a question of scale

I’ve always had a thing about the size of buildings on my battlefields. About 20 years ago I built a scale model of the battlefield at Waterloo at a scale of 1”:100 yards. I was using 6mm Adler figures, with 12 of them representing an infantry battalion and 6 for a cavalry regiment. I’d used balsa wood strips to make the buildings, which were placed on the board at ground scale. It’s fair to say both La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont were small. 

One of the players had 1/300 scale models he’d built and painted of both buildings. He suggested we use those instead. But they were huge, compared to the battlefield. You could have fit a division inside Hougoumont and I vetoed the idea immediately. I’d built the board - my rules! I used a similar process building a board for Aspern-Essling - at least there the buildings and villages were significantly less important. 

But when you look at the tabletop there are so many different scales and compromises. 

The first is figure scale, 20mm, 15mm, 6mm, 28mm or 3mm and more besides. I generally go for 6mm as it balances detail with size and cost and allows my to field loads of them on a table top. 

But does that figure represent 1, 5, 10, 50 soldiers or tanks? 

Ground scale comes next, I’m helping with a WW2 game that has a flexible ground scale but is essentially designed around 1”:50 yards/ metres or 1”:100 yards/ metres. We’re using 1/300 or 6mm figures. That makes the infantry at least 36 feet high (11m) and some tanks more than 50 feet high (16m) according to the ground scale. Infantry on a stand represent a platoon, tanks between 3 and 5 vehicles.

The trees I have are about 4cm high but I use Hexon boards on my tabletop and the slopes and hills are between 1cm and 2cm high. Using ground scale the hill tiers are fine at between 60 and 120 feet (18 - 36m). But that makes my trees 240 to 480 feet tall (70 -140m)! Alternatively taking a tree height as 60 feet a tier would be 15 feet or 5 yards/ metres high - a change that wouldn’t really be noticeable on the average battlefield. 

Figures 6mm, ground 1":50 yards, trees 4cm high, hill tiers 1cm, buildings 1:1000

I’m considering moving from individuals trees to a woodland canopy approach. That way I can represent woods that are about 2cm high and in scale with my ground scale and hill tiers. If it works out I’ll put up a post on it. 

I prefer aircraft at a different scale. I prefer 1/600 rather than 1/300. It means I can raise then on a reasonably high stand and they blend in with the troops on the ground. Aircraft are huge compared with tanks and infantry.

1/600 planes from Heriocs & Ros bring much needed reinforcements at Arnhem for 1/300 Paras

Then there’s the building scale - which is where I’ve been heading all along - the 1/300 buildings just don’t work for me. They are just too big and I can’t really get onboard 1 large building represents a village. Sorry to all my friends who do.

A German infantry battalion defends two barns, ermm I mean a village.

Equally representing buildings at ground scale loses a lot of aesthetics. If I’m building a scale model (I am working on Arnhem around the bridge at the moment but more on that in another post) I’ll pay more attention to that, but for my large scale 6mm games I’ve gone with 1:1000 buildings. 

Russian village from Brigade models based and painted by CtM

They are small enough that I can represent a village, but large enough that I can get some detail and features. There are a number of manufacturers producing models at this scale although I tend to use Brigade models. I’m basing them on modular bases which allows me the flexibility to vary the size shape and look of each village or town in each game. I certainly find that using the terrain from a scale or two below my figure scale works very well for the kind of large scale games I tend to play. 

Russian and German forces battle for control of the city and its two (different scale) bridges

So in my scales I'm all over the place! At the end of the day though it’s a question of personal taste, and scale. 

Enjoy your games

Charles the Modeller

6mm Scale Scratch Built Dragon’s Teeth

According to Wikipedia; 

Dragon's teeth (German: Drachenzähne) are square-pyramidal fortifications of reinforced concrete first used during the Second World War to impede the movement of tanks and mechanised infantry. The idea was to slow down and channel tanks into killing zones where they could easily be disposed of by anti-tank weapons.

They were employed extensively, particularly on the Siegfried Line. 

Hockerline-Westwall ©️Eric Jacob

I’ve wanted to use these on the tabletop for ages. I searched the web and could only find one manufacturer selling them, perfect six miniatures. I wanted to put a lot of them on the table and I just couldn’t justify the expense. So I decided to scratch build them instead.

I decided to go for the square pyramid shapes. The trick was to find something that I could cut up, that had lots of pyramids already. Trying to cut the shapes by hand just wasn't going to be practical. I googled around for anything that I could use to get that shape. It took a while but I finally found something on eBay that looked like it would do the job. Six weeks later and direct from China it arrived. It cost me £6.24 including postage, or about $10.

It’s a reflexology/ massage/ acupuncture therapeutic foot mat. Dig the propaganda: designed by an internationally famous doctor. No hospital. No side effects. 

Well it’s made from a soft plastic, it has lots of pyramids and it was cheap.

Step 1 - Cutting it up 

I tried using my Dremel to cut it using a rotary blade but soon gave up. The plastic melted and roughed up. However reverting to a sharp, strong craft knife turned out to be the solution. The knife can be fairly easily pushed through with a bit of pressure.

The mat is essentially divided into 9. The 4 side sections were easiest. I cut large squares first, stripping the edging and supporting strips from underneath before cutting the board into strips 4 pyramids long.

There are hundreds of them. I stopped after I’d cut 73. That gives me about 9 feet of dragons teeth 1 wide or 4.5 feet doubled up.

I still have more than half the board left but the remaining bits require more cutting and the middle is just not usable. 

I then used the knife to cut the top off the pyramids to square them off.

Step 2 - Basing and Undercoat 

I superglued the strips onto bases each about 4cm long and about 1cm wide and then sprayed them with a base grey undercoat.

Step 3 - Painting 

I tend to use Army Painter paints and inks, but any decent acrylic paint would work as well. Painting consisted of a first coat of Dark Tone ink wash, then a light dry brush of Desert Yellow followed by another lighter dry brush of Skeleton Bone. Finally a Soft Tone ink wash to finish it off.

Step 4 - Basing 

I used Basetex for a quick finish which I could sculpt around the dragons teeth. And that’s it. Job done.

Different variants 

There were cuboid obstacle variants as well. I haven't tried modelling those but if I get around to it this bar drip mat looks like just the ticket. 

Let me know what you think. Have you tried anything similar?

Happy modelling.

Charles the Modeller

Movement and Activation

The mechanics for movement and formation activation are the core rules underpinning the rules for All Hell Let Loose. In my last post I talked about the design objectives and outlined a quick summary of the movement rules. Today I’m going to delve into that in more detail.

The game is based on the movement and actions of a number of formations under the control of two or more players. Each formation represents a number of companies of troops, a battle group, battalion or regiment under a single command structure. Think majors and colonels trying to respond to orders from generals (the players).

Players have a tabletop view and (hopefully), a unified vision of how they want the battle to progress, they know how fast troops can move and they know when they want a formation to move. However troops on the ground have a limited view of the world, limited information, competing priorities and logistical complications.

I want to compare the rules for All Hell Let Loose to those of chess. In chess the location of every piece is known to both players. The order of movement, alternate with white going first, is clearly understood. The move distances and combat capabilities of every chess piece are known and do not vary. All Hell Let Loose does not mirror this approach. Breaking all of these conventions simulates the lack of knowledge, loss of control and sheer bloody mindedness of others that generals faced when fighting actual battles.

Battlefield Knowledge

A number of approaches are taken to reduce the information available to players on the location of troops on the battlefield.

Formations more than 12” away from any enemy forces can be represented by a counter. Individual units, effectively a platoon of infantry or vehicles, are not placed on the table. Whilst the location of the counter informs the opposing player that something is there the other player remains unsure as to whether it is infantry, mechanised, armoured, artillery as well as to whether it is weak or strong. We call it a strategic counter to reflect it is operating in a less restricted manner than deployed troops.

In addition, in most games, players can elect to place a number of dummy counters on the board, roughly 1 for every 3 or 4 real formations. These counters are intended to enable the player to keep their opponent guessing as to where the real strength of his army lies.

Movement and Action Order

Movement and actions are conducted at the formation level, with all the units belonging to a formation acting when the formation acts. This is controlled by players selecting a dice or token at random from a bag or cup. Two identical, but different coloured sets of dice or tokens are needed, one for each side. Each formation on the table, or in the case of artillery, supporting from off table generates one die. In order to do something with a formation a die from the bag must be allocated to it.

Selection of a die is random. This breaks the alternating approach of many games and removes a level of control from players. It promotes tension, particularly during crucial turns and keeps everybody focussed on action at the table.

Dice bag from saddle-goose-designs.co.uk and tokens by Lego

Allocation of the die to a formation or counter on the table is allocated by the controlling player. It can be allocated to any formation which has not yet acted in a turn. Once all the dice in the bag have been allocated to formations and the formation actions resolved the turn ends and dice are returned to the bag for the start of the next turn.

Movement and Actions

Players can automatically move strategic counters at a faster speed than deployed troops. However, once they move close to an enemy, or the enemy moves close to them, the formation must deploy. The higher speed and automatic movement of these counters is intended to speed units into combat to drive the game forward.

Deployed formations, however, must determine their movement and capacity to act based on a dice roll. There are three possible outcomes,

Limited Tactical Action - move at half speed or fire at half range

Normal Tactical Action - undertake an action such as move at normal speed, fire a full range, enter ambush, reform

Double Tactical Action - undertake two actions such a move twice, move and fire, fire and assault

The higher the quality of troops the more likely they are to be able to act as the player wishes. In addition the effectiveness of a formation’s officers can provide a bonus or penalty to this check. Well led troops are significantly more effective on the battlefield.

Elements of SS Wachbattalion 3 attack at Arnhem - it is arguably the worst unit on the western front

This approach to movement and capability adds more complexity to the decision making. A unit close to the enemy is always under threat from a possible double activation. No attack or action can be guaranteed. Better quality troops and better quality officers can hold off attacks from numerically superior forces.

Penalties are applied to the activation rolls as formations sustain losses but that will have to wait for another post.

Next time I’ll post a blog on some custom terrain I’ve made.

Charles the Modeller

Rules Design Objectives and Approach

When designing a rules system the really big question is what am I trying to achieve?

With the rules for All Hell Let Loose there were a number of objectives;

We wanted a game where players controlled multiple battalions, regiments or battlegroups. We wanted to be generals controlling a battle, not captains in charge of a company.  These formations needed to reflect the range of units you’d expect including mortars, HMGs, engineers and recon options.

We wanted to simulate the feel of the period without getting bogged down in the detail. No general has perfect knowledge of the ground and enemy, battalions react too slowly or not at all, threats are over or under estimated. The management of platoons by lieutenants and sergeants, such as unit facing, would not really be our concern.

Players always needed to be involved in the game, and always feel under pressure. Every turn, every action should involve decisions, choices and compromises.

The battlefield needed to fit on a reasonably sized table, 6ft by 4ft for a small game with one player a side, and be scalable for larger games with larger tables and more players per side.

The game durations needed to fit in with our family and work life. Essentially it means we have 4 hours on a Friday night, with games that could carry over for two or three game nights, or could be managed on those golden days that dad’s get off once in a blue moon.

These aspirations dictated or guided the approach to the rules and game.

The table size constraint combined with the desire to fight large battles dictated many of the games principles. Providing a battleground that covered miles along with the need to place a range of different unit types pushed us to the smaller scale figures. 6mm figures seemed to provide the appropriate balance between size, detail and range, although the rules will work equally well with 3mm or 10mm figures.

Forces are organised by formation - a battalion, regiment or battle group. Each formation made up of a number of units, either a stand with infantry or a gun or a vehicle or tank, each representing an historical platoon. Play testing resulted in a limit of 12 units for each formation with larger historical battalions split into two or more formations. This enables sufficient flexibility, figure and unit type representation without threatening to overwhelm any opposition it might encounter, or taking too long to move and adjudicate actions.

The game is intended to be a simulation. Lots of factors are subsumed into a single dice roll to aid speed of play but without losing the feel of the period. Troop quality is split across 3 basic quality levels, command similarly split. Fire effectiveness is aggregated from 0 to +7 with different values for attacks against infantry than against vehicles. Range modifiers are simple and consistent. Turns can represent anything from 15 minutes to an hour of combat. This enables turns to be completed in 20 to 30 minutes of game time and for battles to be fought in a reasonable timeframe.

In order to keep players involved and to add pressure whilst removing control formations act according to the order dice are removed from a bag. Formation activity is further constrained by the result of an activation dice roll based on command and troop quality. Players can never be really sure when a formation will move or how effective it will be. Attacks can start late, be interrupted or never even take place at all. At key points in the game players will be worrying about the colour of the next dice out of the bag whilst trying desperately decide which of their three most critical formations they need to activate first.

Next time I’ll talk more about the order and activation system.

Happy dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller