The Changing Face of (Our) Warfare

When Paul Next Door and I arranged a game of Chain of Command for Thursday (last night) Paul rolled randomly for a scenario coming up with the probe. Then only rolling a "1" on his support choices dice and taking into account the differences in our force ratings (his US Armoured Infantry +4 and my Panzergrenadiers +1) it left us with him only having 1 support point while I only had 3. Bummer. To make matters worse he declined my offer of re-rolling!

I cannot lie. I was a bit miffed, especially as I'd got quite a bundle of new kit to try out for the first time.

I'd resolved to paint up the three MG42's I needed to turn my grenadiers into panzergrenadiers in time for the game, but also fancied maybe fielding a newly painted PaK 40 A/T Gun or some such (I was the defender).

Ho-hum. So I got thinking about what I could best spend my three points on. The scenario victory conditions dictate I would have to prevent Paul getting one team off my base table edge, so I turned my mind to how best to hold him up. The week previous he'd played basic US Infantry, but this time he would be packing a HUGE amount more firepower.

Well, only one thing for it. I'd change tack and finally make those mine-field markers and some wire. Nothing like fieldworks to slow up an opponent! What's more, it was unlikely he'd expect it given that we'd not used much other than trenches in previous games.


This should slow him!

 The minefield markers were likely to be the cheapest support option monetarily that I was EVER likely to deploy. All-in they cost me about ten pence for two sets! The bases are 1p pieces (8), the uprights are chopped up matchsticks (four from a stick) and the boards were clipped from a coffee stirrer. Signage was done with a graphics pen I already had. OK, I accept they're a bit basic, but there's not a lot more needed to be honest.

Mine markers flanked by new wire.

I cheated a little with the wire. I'd picked up a couple of these from Products for Wargamers stand at the Overlord show in Abingdon earlier this year for £2 each. The bases were about 6"x 2" (the right size for CoC) so I "tarted" them up a bit with flock to match my other stuff and added some tufts & flowers. They'll get some rust in the coming days.

In the end I opted to just take the two minefields and an adjutant for the game, but I was glad to have added a couple more options to the support pool for future games. They were a cracking choice! I completely filled a small wood with both minfields, denying them as a fire base and meaning that to advance on that side Paul would have to cross a wide expanse of open ground in front of up to 4 MG42's. It completely closed down half the battlefield It would also mean that in future VERY careful consideration would need to be given to taking those engineer teams or risk being severely hampered by a cheap trick.

Food for thought.