Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Partizans at Dunkerque - A WWII skirmish

Last sunday I was able to join a real eye candy skirmish game.

Michi, Franz and I met at Christopher (aka Axebreaker) to play a scenario using the rules of DisposableHeros PointBlank. Personally not my preferred epoch, but you can´t get an impression of somethiing without trying.

Christopher was offering his home for gaming, Michi brought his figures and terrain with him and Franz was explaining the rules. I was responsible for eating and drinking many of the good things Christopher had offered to us. So everybody had a lot to do.  :)

Many thanks to my comrades for this really funny day especially to Michi, who has built up all of the terrain by himself (the ship is converted from a Playmobil ship) and also has painted all of the figures in a very very very.... good style. You can see a lot of other work from him on his blog called "tableterror" (just have a look on my link list).

The scenario was that the Germans had already occupied Dunkerque and some spies had taken a lot of photos concerning the harbor of the town. They spotted almost everything to become their planned attack a great victory for the Resistance. 
















The plan of the French partizans and the English agents was to destroy the ship "Doreen" to unable the Germans to supply troops with goods which would arrive by train and 4 lorries on June 24th for loading the ship. If this would not be able the alternative for them was to catch the goods.

Here are some impressions of the game.


A German squad on patrol. The enemy could be everywhere.



French civilians.






The guy on the left hand of the photo is a British agent who just entried the scene by coming out of the canalization of Dunkerque. Immediately he started a heavy firefight with the sailors of the "Doreen".

 



The German sailors on the ship fired back with a heavy MG but weren´t able to get rid of the agent. The agent even won the firefight and managed to shoot the gunner of the HMG team before he was wounded and taken out of action by another sailor.

 


Meanwhile the other British agents had been able to capture one of the supply-lorries and started to drive down the street.

 


Alarmed by the heavy firefight at the ship a second German squad took cover on the roof top of the head quarter. From this point they had an ideal view over the whole terrain and started to fire at the captured lorry. Two well placed salves of the HMG destroyed the tires and even the lower hull with heavy hits. The lorry just blew up.


Because of too less time we didn´t manage to end this game, but it really had been a lot of fun.
In my opinion the fun factor of a game is not only depending on the chosen rulesystem but also very much on the quality of the painting of terrain, models and figures.

For me a game also has to be eyecandy.



15 comments:

  1. Absolut allererste Sahne Mann!

    Sowas schaut man sich doch echt gerne an.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stimmt. Ich hatte fast den Eindruck, als würde ich vor einem Demotisch auf der Tactica stehen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Klasse, ein tolles Szenario, perfekt in Szene gesetzt mit einer wundervollen Platte und schönen Figuren. Mehr davon!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. It was an absolute pleasure to have you and the others over and I really look forward to the next meeting.

    The board really was fantastic and Michi did a brilliant job on the figures and terrain! Franz also did nice job with the rules and we did a good job.....eating!:-)

    Great job on blowing up my truck!:-)

    You'll be happy to know that SYW French are something I'm collecting. I'm collecting them for FIW, but of course they can be used for European battles as well.

    Christopher

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for your comments.

    @Christopher: so it seems to be that you like the rules of Maurice?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm not sure yet Mike. I will give it a try no question, but after first impressions from reading Black Powder seems more up my street. However, since I haven't played a game of either it's hard to say which is better. For sure it sounds interesting and looks like it could give an unpredictable game. No question it's a game that has to played before one can truly give an opinion on.
    What's your thought's?

    Christopher

    ReplyDelete
  7. I didn´t play any of these systems yet. I also posses BlackPowder which seems to be very good, too.

    As I am not a very fast painter and never checked a rule system from the beginning to its end I have to choose for one of the rules at first. Just to try. After being firm with one system I would like to check the other one. My first choice is Maurice because of the quantity of figures needed.

    I guess that it depends on the kind of battle you like to game. If there is a really big battle with lots of units it has to be BlackPowder I think. Gaming a battle with less units (about 15 units per side) than Maurice would be fine. The card system of Maurice allows only to activate one force within a turn. The strength of the force depends on the formation, their distance, their kind of unit and the terrain it is within. After activating a unit you could only move this unit, or charge or rally. Then you will have to wait for your next turn to activate another force.

    Dealing with big battles with concept won´t work I think. But I never checked it.

    I´m really looking forward to try Maurice within the next few weeks with comrades who like to check it too. But I have to build up the armies of both sides first.

    But as I mentioned above I´m interested in the rules of BlackPowder as well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Black Powder is a great, fast-playing ruleset. We've made a presentation game at the Tactica 2012 and most people where satisfied by the easy and fast rules.

      Delete
    2. Well I for one will help be one of those play testers!:-) Eventually we will play both games.

      Christopher

      Delete
  8. @Thomas: Yes, I remember. You made the presentation with 10mm Pendraken minis, didn´t you?
    I have been there and made a test. It was great fun.

    @Christopher: You´ll be on my list of play testers ;)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Fantastic looking game. Very well done guys.

    ReplyDelete
  10. What a great looking game, love the sepia tone photos, they almost look real.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Ray,

    thanks for watching my blog. :)
    I used the sepia tone for giving the photos the look as if they were taken by the cameras of that time. The photos should look like taken from the agents discovering the harbor and the German posts.
    The color photos were meant to show the game.
    Nice to hear that you like this method. :)

    Congratulations to your 250.000 clicks on your blog. I added some clicks, too. :)

    Cheers
    Mike

    ReplyDelete