Tuesday, 6 March 2012

WW1 15mm Battle Report "Battle of Peronne" 1st Sept 1918 Part 1 of 2.

"This is a battle that could probably have been fought, as this town was held by the Germans as the British 4th army and French 1st army attacked the Germans at the Somme on the 1st Sept 1918.
The battle has been raging for several hours in the German forward trenches with the German withdrawing after suffering severe losses. All that remains in the area to stop the British and French advance are some reserve German troops who have been resting from front line duty in the reserve trenches.
These troops are now the front line and must halt the advancing enemy forces heading towards them. The British and French tanks are from reserves rushed forward to exploit the breakthrough and have only one mission (Destroy the Germans!).
Can the Germans hold back this fresh mechanised army or are they doomed?"
(Words kindly supplied by Postie)

On Saturday 3 Rejects turned up for this WW1 game put on by Postie, there was John, Surjit and myself, I was the German player defending a massive trench against a combined French and British tank army played by the other two boys.

British: 4 MK IV Male Tanks (2 facines), 5 MK IV Female Tanks (I facine), 3 Whippet Tanks, 1 field gun and horse team, 4 heavy field gun batteries (off table) and a unit of trench raiders. Surjit.

French: 3 Char St Chamond Tanks, 3 Char Schneider Tanks, 3 Char Renault 17 Tanks. John.

German: 3 Battalions of Infantry, 3 HMG's, 3 LMG's, 2 trench mortars, 1 flamethrower, 1 field gun and horse team, 1 A7V tank, 1 Division command stand, 1 Brigade command stand, 6 dugouts, 2 bunkers (1 with a HMG and 1 with a field gun, 5 heavy field gun batteries (off table).

The allied mission was to get 1 tank across the trench and cause a morale check and if I failed I surrendered or get one off table and I automatically surrendered.

21 allied tanks started their engines.....

The initial set up of 8 foot by 4 foot of no man's land...

The town of Peronne, it had seen better days....

The dugouts are represented this way and a list of what's in them is held by the player but one hit will kill all occupants.......

The starting line......

MK IV Male "Black Prince", nearly all tanks were named by their crews.....

3 Whippets and like their name bloody fast.....

The French starting line.......

You had to pre book your off table artillery and roll a 5 or 6 at the beginning of a turn to change it, this pre booking had bad consequences sometimes if you didn't change it...

I kept a lot in the dugouts from previous experience of the rules.....

The first turn and 3 tanks have failed their reliability tests (denoted by a black marker) and are allowed no further movement but can fire their main guns and another has felt the impact of a  German shell, 4 down and seventeen to go!

This is how we denote off table artillery, you roll for duds (don't throw a 1 on a D6) and then roll 5 D10s and the grid number corresponds to the dice number and you get smashed on a 5 or a 6 on a D6....

The French Renault 17, fast French bugger.....

This French St Charmond monster has failed the other test that occurs on even turns which is ditching, the dice denotes 2 turns of no moving, if you want to move a tank you roll two D6 and don't roll high....

More pictures and the conclusion of a bloody close game tomorrow.....

75 comments:

  1. I'm gutted I missed this game, it looks great. Instead of playing a game I spent the day waiting around for my car to be serviced and repaired. Minus £400 later and I'd lost the will to live... I think you had a better day than me!

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    1. The game looked excellent, without any figures on the table!

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  2. Looking blooming good. Nice mix of allied armour and lovely terrain.

    I'm hooked!

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  3. I think if you can win that fight you're a damn good tactician, not sure I should be rooting for the Gerry's though.

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  4. The suspense will kill me...can't wait to hear what happened...

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  5. This looks very interesting.

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  6. Awesome! A tank rush!

    Looking forward to part 2. Have the feeling the fast frenchies will be hitting the trenches!

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  7. Ooooohhh... I love Big Bad Battles!! :D

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  8. i have to admire the work that goes into these things,, the ruined building is excellent.

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  9. Nice report. I'm really exited how the game went on...

    Cheers
    Monty

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  10. Looks like a fun game. A lot may depend on the reliability of the vehicles, I'll find out in the next episode!!

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  11. Looks like a lot of fun, i look forward to the outcome :)

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  12. Pretty cool! Never thought that trench-warfare would make good games :)

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  13. Great setup. I may borrow this scenario since I have most of the same tanks in 10mm. The Whippets seem to be starting backwards in the fourth photo.

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    1. You're absolutely right sir, I actually laughed out loud!

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  14. Looks really cool and enjoying the report. I didn't notice, but what rules are you using please?

    Christopher

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    1. Poor Bloody Infantry by Agema Publications 1996 and Richard D Watts and Trench by Table Top Games 1975 and a few house rules as well.

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  15. Really like the look of this game. Very nice photos.

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  16. Wow, Looking very impressive! That's a lot of tanks. The FT17 is one of my favorite tanks of any time period.

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  17. This is your best game ever. I am Whippet tank fan.

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  18. Verrrry interesting scenario.. and I can see this being close.. or not depending on how the defender does ;) Can't wait for the next half..

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  19. Looks great - must have been fun to play this game!

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  20. Beautiful table! Can't wait to see how the battle unfolds!

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  21. Looks great so far. Very nice table too.

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  22. This looks brilliant Fran! Can't wait for tomorrow's installment.

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  23. Tank in the trench, tank in the trench!!!
    Nice terrain and nice models!
    Waiting for the next episode Fran!
    T.

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  24. It would be fascinating to watch you guys play, just to see how it's done.

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  25. You've got a great set-up here - I love that picture of the town of Perrone!

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  26. this looks great. love the trench.

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  27. Nice Part 1 of the story.

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  28. Great Batrep. Love the pre-booked artillery idea!

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  29. Looks great. It's nice to see WWI getting some love.

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  30. Love the broken down building. Props to Arch duke!!! haha

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  31. Wow thats one great looking table!

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  32. I didn't know there are male and female tanks, how very interesting, Lurk!

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  33. Great looking game, love the terrain - simple yet evocative. Can't wait for part two.

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  34. Looks like a great set up, wouldn't want to mess with those tanks, they'd blow the dice away.

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  35. Great minatures and set up1

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  36. guys in trenches against tanks? They dont stand a chance...

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  37. Awesome looking game - that's the most tanks I've seen for a WWI game. Best, Dean

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  38. Great looking table! Some very cool elements to this game. I'm looking to the next installment.

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  39. Well that's not fair!! We want instalment 2 right now!!!

    Looks like you have managed to create an interesting WWI battle, not always that easy

    Ian

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  40. That table looks so barren, but then no-mans land was a barren bit of hell on earth. Trench warfare is my favorite part of WWI just building and maintaining those things took a lot of knowledge about engineering and what the men went through, fascinating stuff. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the story tomorrow and to being back on line in the morning with you Angry.

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  41. Great to see all ww1 tanks in action including the french loved the look of the British Tanks too great blog looked a great game

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  42. I love those trenches. That looks like such a fun map to play.

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  43. I'm not going to pretend to understand how this wargaming works but that is one helluva setup you got there! Looks quite fascinating!

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  44. I am very much looking forward to part II.

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  45. That town and string of tanks and the fancy names, I think I m getting to know more about wargames . Thank you.

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  46. those tanks, the ones from indiana jones, are very awesome.

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  47. Fabulous looking game, thanks for the AAR.

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  48. I'm hoping that you staved off those tanks. I'll be back for the conclusion, for sure.

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  49. Really super looking table. Sounds like great game too

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  50. A lot of tanks in this battle, and a very nice table. I´m expecting the second part.

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  51. Great looking table love all those tanks. Seems a good ruleset as well like the idea of ordering the artillery in advance

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  52. Nice looking table and a good report. I cant wait for part two.

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  53. From that sweet messed up building at the beginning onward I was enjoying this. Just look at the details!

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  54. Fabulous looking game Fran. Postie is to be congartulated on another great set up.

    Will the Hun go on the run at the sight of the wall of steel? Do tell all soon!!!

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  55. Wow, impressive looking game, especially the tanks

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  56. Hi,
    Excellent, this battle report is very good. Fabulous looking game!
    Vive l'Entente cordiale
    bye

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  57. Tanks a lot for this first installment in the batrep. Never seen that many Great War tank models on one table. Wow. I also like the trench terrain, very simple but effective. Bravo.

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  58. Wow I can't wait till the conclusion!

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  59. This looks very interesting! It would appear that you have spent a considerable amount of time (and money?) with this cool hobby. Is this more or less a role-playing thing or is there a set of rules to follow. I am intrigued.

    By the way, have you ever heard of the role-playing game called, 'The Morrow Project'? It's kind of like D&D save that the setting is post-apocalyptic.

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  60. Pre-booking your artillery sounds like it needs a lot of thought... not the kind of thing they ever factor into RTS computer games lol

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  61. Great terrain and Bat rep. Just getting into WW1 (Early war) myself so this uis very inspirational.

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  62. Again, dude, this looks like a lot of fun. Everything is so detailed here. It really does look like a real battlefield setting. It looks like you were having a good time. Great.

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