0200 Hours: Airfield Raid

02 Hundred Hours is a skirmish wargame focusing on night-time raids in World War II. If you see yourself as the SAS setting demo charges to blow up a lorry or as the Landesschützen investigating suspicious  sounds emanating from behind the oil drums, then this game might be for you.

A pair of SAS troopers survey their handiwork

The SAS team  comprised Officer, Sergeant, Demolitions expert, 2 Troopers and a Pair of troopers at 26 points

The Luftwaffe had Sergeant and 5 Pairs of Sentries on table plus Officer, 2 Dog Handlers and 6 Single Sentries. These come on as reinforcements when the alarm gets raised. All at 30 points

The SAS mission was to destroy the fuel dump, the ammo stores and the 3 planes.

The Luftwaffe mission was to stop the SAS or kill half of them.

View of the airfield from the road

View of the airfield from the ammo stores

The SAS enter near the fuel dump, immediately kill a pair of sentries and lay charges by the fuel dump

Alerted sentries make their way to the fuel dump.

Maybe not so alert. The German Sergeant and two sentries looking elsewhere

The SAS Demo expert must have gotten excited as the charge explodes prematurely.

The Alarm goes off and the Germans start to get reinforced

The German officer comes face to face with the SAS Demo expert and a trooper

The eye tokens indicate who is visible and who is covert. Only visible targets can be shot at.

The SAS officer hides round  the corner but made a noise earlier hence the eye token.

The German officer is added to the long list of defender casualties

One of the German reinforcements, a dog handler, also becomes a casualty.

The SAS Sergeant has sneaked up the righthand edge of the table and laid a demo charge in the ammo store. Although he is out in the open, he has not made a noise to alert the guards to his presence. 

We left the game there. Only 2 of the 5 objectives were destroyed, just under half the German force were casualties and none of the SAS team were injured so a slightly partial victory to the SAS. 

Shaun painted the figures, vehicles and planes. He also put together the very nice scenery.

I can see this game lending itself to other periods such as French Indian Wars and Star Wars. 

A full description of the game can be found at Boardgame Geek and the game is available from Grey For Now Games 

Puebla 1862 using Bloody Big Battles

It is May so Shaun and I decided to refight the Cinco de Mayo battle, Puebla, using Bloody Big Battles.

We used Vincent Tsao's scenario and took the map from Tim Tilson's Colonial Campaigns book Maximilian in Mexico. Shaun took the role of  Major-General Charles de Lorencz, commander of the French army and I  was General Ignacio Zaragoza, Republican Mexican Army of the East

The table looking east on Turn 1. 

The Mexicans are deployed awaiting the French arrival from the north-west

The table looking west.

Turn 3 and the French assault La Ladrillera occupied by the remnants of the Rifle Battalion whilst Mexican general, and future president, Porfirio Diaz looks on from the top of the building.

Turn 3 and the French exploit through La Ladrillera as their offensive fire obliterated the defenders and overrunning the Mexican general, and future president, Porfirio Diaz.

Turn 6 and the assault on Fort Guadalupe starts.

Still Turn 6 and all of the fort's defenders, the Zapadores and the Toluca Btns, have been forcibly evicted. Can the 3 base Fijo de Vera Cruz battalion swing about and save the day? 

The 3 base Fijo de Vera Cruz battalion swung about and fired into the flank of the 1/1st Chasseurs a Pied to no effect. On Turn 7 they were  assaulted and, having lost 2 bases, destroyed. In the middle centre the Zapadores are about to get overrun, bottom centre and the San Luis Rifles are going to get pushed back from the rifle pits, and, finally top centre the 2/2nd Colonial Marines fail to move against the La Ladrillera artillery battery.

The last turn shows the French rolling up the Mexicans on the ridge but too far away to take Fort Loreto. Meanwhile the 2/2nd Colonial Marines gaze glumly at the open road to Puebla having destroyed the La Ladrillera artillery battery. but again failing to roll to move.

This view shows the French right flank which suffered from poor movement dice and only saw combat when the Mexican cavalry obligingly charged  them on the last 2 turns.

At it stands it was a draw but if we had played another turn then the French would have captured Puebla. Besides the Mexican force had lost over 50% of it's infantry units and half it's guns and cavalry. The French, on the other hand, lost 2 bases of infantry. So no Cinco de Mayo celebrations for the Mexicans.

99% of the figures are QRF / Freikorps 15mm with 1% being Peter Pig or Minifigs. The keen-eyed amongst you may have noticed that some troops have been proxied. This is because some of my figures are elsewhere (I hope).

It's been just over 4 years, or 1,476 days to be precise, since I last posted anything to this blog. 

Our club has moved completely online, playing Tabletop Simulator now, and we rarely "push lead" as the pub where we used to game is no longer available to us.

We have found a place over in Cirencester where we can rent a table so we've started using that. It looks like a potential future venue for a Bloody Big Battles Bash day.

Playing this game has inspired me to not leave it another 1,476 days before I blog again.

Links

Vincent Tsao's scenario on BBB Groups.io

The Big Battles venue in Cirencester