Hexsides and Hand Grenades

This marks my 100th post on this blog and I thought for a long while about how to make it a little special.  The first wargame I ever bought was World at War: Eisenbach Gap and "First Moves" was the first scenario I ever played and for that reason, among others, it remains one of my favorite scenarios to haul out after a long day at work.  I'm not sure what it is about this scenario that keeps calling me back but it could be the beautiful simplicity of it, the raw power of T-72s vs. M1 Abrams tanks or the fact that it's the very first step into the World at War universe. In any case, I do remember doing a very short AAR of this scenario a while back and I've always thought that it deserved better.  So here it is - a fully detailed AAR of First Moves for Eisenbach Gap. American Setup:  I put the two Abrams platoons back on the hill south of Eisenbach while the infantry goes way back into the city to avoid it getting pulverized from Soviet artillery.  The ITV ...

One of the great things about the Lock 'n Load squad-based tactical series is its ability to provide interesting new settings under the same ruleset.  The fact that a new LnL game can be played right after you pull it out of the box keeps a lot of players coming back to the series.  It also helps that Mark H. Walker has done a good job of choosing settings that are distinct enough to keep the new games fresh and interesting while at the same time keeping enough new products coming out to keep people interested in the series. So far in the LnL series, these settings have been covered: WW2 - western front (Heroes of the Blitzkrieg, Band of Heroes, Swift & Bold, Noville, In Defeat Defiance) WW2 - eastern front (Dark July, Not One Step Back) WW2 - North Africa (Mare Nostrum) WW2 - Pacific (Heroes of the Pacific) Vietnam War - (Forgotten Heroes: Vietnam, ANZAC attack) Yom Kippur War - (Heroes of the Faith) Falkland Islands War  (A Ring of Hills) 1985 Europea...

In my previous post , I talked about two different setup options for the NATO player for the scenario, "Southern Thrust" in LnLP's brigade level WW3 game, "Dawn's Early Light".  In this article, I'd like to look at the Soviet setup. The Soviets get a big advantage here since they set up after the NATO player.  Therefore, a smart Soviet player is going to need to watch carefully how the NATO player splits his forces in order to find a weakness and exploit it. In the previous article, I gave an example of a static "forward defense" setup for NATO that probably won't work.  If the NATO player decides for this kind of setup, the Soviet player can easily just split his forces evenly and drive for Eisenbach on the right and the three cities on the left. The Soviet player sends the 33rd Motorized Rifle Division down on the left.  They should have the Canadians either defeated or badly hurt by the afternoon of Day 1.  After that, it's...

"Southern Thrust" is the name of scenario 3 for "Dawn's Early Light", LnLP's brigade-level combat game set in the World at War universe where the Soviets are rolling through West Germany in 1985. In "Southern Thrust", the NATO forces, consisting of the US 5th Armored Division the 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (4CMBG), are harassing the Soviets on their southern flank in the Eisenbach gap as the Soviets push through towards the Rhine and on towards France and world domination.  The Soviet 33rd Motorized Division and the 1st Guards Tank Army are sent to take care of these pesky varmints and have a few objectives to complete on the way. The Warsaw Pact forces start north of row M on the map while NATO sets up south of row I for a classic north-south battle where the Soviets will try to capture Eisenbach along with any three  of four cities to the west of it.  If they can inflict some serious losses on the NATO units along the way and prese...

With the recent Disney purchase of Lucasfilm and the announcement of new Star Wars sequels on the way in 2015, I thought I would take a little break from modern warfare to have a little fun in a galaxy far far away.  Star Wars Miniatures was a Wizards of the Coast collectible miniatures game released in 2004 and discontinued in 2010.  when WotC let the license go, much to the disappointment of the game's small but loyal fan base.  I don't play miniatures games very often but they're fun to haul out once in a while and I feel the need to mercilessly occupy some serious real estate in our tiny apartment for the better part of a day. Anyway, without further ado, here's an AAR of a Star Wars Miniatures Hoth Battle.  I used figures from the base set, the "Battle for Hoth" expansion, and the booster packs to create a simple scenario. I start out purchasing 160 point armies for both the Rebels and Imperials  That makes this a medium-size skirmish.  Faced with...

Going through some of my back issues of LnLP's Line of Fire magazine, I found a little gem that I had missed the first time around and decided to give it a go.  "Fiery Baptism" is a scenario that takes place in Algiers in 1943 at the start of Operation Torch, the British-American invasion of North Africa. Despite their attempts to covertly contact the French commanders in the region and request they join the Allies, not all the French military leaders in Algiers could be persuaded. As a result, the Americans found themselves under fire from French forces on some of the beach landing sites. "Fiery Baptism" pits the French and Americans against one another on a beautiful map included as part of the issue (which can also be used for a scenario for "Island War").   The French set up on the north part of the map with a handful of troops and a machine gun.  In the west part of the map, there are some 1-6-4s in a house while over to the west, there...