Bardia Holds Out - Easily

Our regular game of Tactical Combat today was a vignette of Operation Compass from January 3, 1941, the first action of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force.

The table from the Commonwealth side; ominously open
and overseen from a height.

The Italian western flank.

Eytie defenders setting up.

The hammer - eight Matilda infantry tanks of 7th RTR.

The smaller but plucky Italian armoured corps.

A platoon of 2/7th Australian Battalion, riding in two trucks
and five Bren carriers, supported by a 3" mortar and two portees.

 

The eastern end of the defence, across a wadi. 

We concentrated our forces on the right, where the rows
of barbed wire weren't, but right away had a tank knocked out.

We drove forward, sheltering our infantry behind clouds of dust.

Both sides also had supporting artillery, while the Commonwealth had a preliminary bombardment (which mostly missed) and a Gloster Gladiator (which failed to turn up). We rolled really poorly for much of the game.

A few turns in, we're halfway to the enemy positions, but
are taking casualties, and what are those tokens between us
and the treeline? (Minefields, that's what.) 

Italian cavalry arrives - the defenders don't really need the help.

At this point we had a little luck, by knocking out three of the Italian vehicles and strafing the enemy artillery positions.

This didn't really help much, though.

This is about as far as we got before giving up for the day.

Part of the problem was concentrating our attack, which meant that even missed shots scattered into more of our troops. Part of it was the minefield, which turned out to be empty right in front of the Matildas. Part of it was our opponents' positioning of obstacles, which was professional and intimidating enough to make us try to flank him and run into those mines. And part was our rotten dice luck.                                      

The ruleset is not the culprit; it's an old friend to most of us by now and surprisingly effective at what it tries to do. I still hope to use it to run a VBCW game sometime.

I'm sorry to admit I kinda disengaged from play, letting my partner take over most of the tactics and only occasionally tossing dice or moving an errant unit for him. The relaxed club atmosphere encourages this - another member (having been distracted by car trouble) was fast asleep!

In other news, I put up a diorama of the Battle of Olustee, February 20, 1864, for Black History Month at the library:

Given the current political climate, this may be subversive.

Depicting the rearguard of the 54th Massachusetts at the end of the battle, I intend to add more Confederates and make better smoke. I forgot to borrow some of the pillow stuffing we used for dust in the Bardia game, but maybe I can pick it up this week. See you next time.

Ups and Downs

So, yeah, I didn't make any progress. It started last Sunday night when a pipe burst on the seventh floor of my apartment block. About a quarter of my floor flooded. I rescued a handful of minis boxes sitting on the floor, but spent the next day futilely waiting for an inspection that never came, rather than going to work. Eventually the floor dried and today I got a cleaner in to go over the floor and hopefully stave off any mold.

Spent most of my time reading. Finished a recent biography of Flora MacDonald of 'Forty-Five fame, started on a brief memoir of a US Marine in Vietnam and my first Iain Banks Culture novel, slowly worked my way through Charles Darwin's classic Voyage of the Beagle, and picked up an entire set of Tintin volumes.

That reminds me, I want to 
buy a few of Roly Hermans' paintings.

I did get permission to build a diorama for Black History Month, and have started on a Paperboys depiction of Olustee. Past displays have increased kids' interest in building their own paper models, so with luck I can "spread the love."

Finally, I obtained a copy of the Bolt Action starter set. Took a while, but on the upside it turns out the shop offers a 15% discount on Warlord and Games Workshop kits. That tempted me to pick up an LOTR set, but it'll have to wait. The Bolt Action box is very nice for the cost and even includes a dice bag for its initiative mechanic. The building sprue looks good too. I look forward to assembling this one. With luck, I might be able to get away with doing it at work as well, as I am on the WWII-80th-anniversary committee. The German vehicle in the box is even flat; perfect to go with Paperboys!

So... looking up, I guess. See you next time.