The Hamilton Road Gaming Group finished up our "Disposable Heroes" Boot Camp with a few games. I was slightly under the weather so I 'advised' a young fellow from the neighborhood who's been playing with us for a few weeks. Part way through the game, he tired of it so I took over. I faces Tyler's Devil's Brigade platoon plus with some Wehrmacht Grenadier regulars. I had a Pz.IV D and Tyler had a tank destroyer with a ancient 75mm cannon on an M3 halftrack chassis. It proved to be enough.
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| Looking toward the Allied side. The river-like divide is a galactic separation between my table and Marty/Robby's table. |
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| The troops of the 1st SSF advance over the grainfields. |
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| The Wehrmacht advances in turn. This element didn't last long. Tyler's jeep with a .50 cal HMG saw to that. |
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| The advance on the German right. American squads are HUGE. |
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| My sniper team avoids the advancing Forcemen. The Pz.IV is immoblized by a shot from the Tank Destroyer. |
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| The firefight in the grain field begins. |
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| Ah, yes! Darian's mortar took out the jeep with it's .50 cal and BAR team. Somehow it's always sweet... and surprising... when a mortar actually hits something! |
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| A cluster of Forcemen. |
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| Yeah, that's the culprit! The Force's Cannon Company chalks one up... with the destruction of my Pz. IV. |
On the other side of the table, Marty's Sikhs defended against a parachute landing of Robby's Airborne in a scrimage/maneuver/wargame-of-a-wargame. They actually had time for two games since Marty cleaned up the air-dropped Screaming Eagles in quick time in the first game. It was a night battle and the paratroop were "dropped" by dropping 'chits' from a height. If they landed off board, the represented element was gone. If it landed in trees, it was pinned. In the second, Robby had some air support and the Sikhs didn't do so well.
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| Sikhs on patrol are ambushed by a paratrooper HMG. More on this later. |
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| Sikhs take refuge in a farm house. Sgt. Rock leads the paratroops at the bottom of the photo. |
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| The airstrikes supporting Rob's paratroopers found the Churchill a tempting target. |
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| We often use blue chips to show where casualties fell. Here is all that's left of the HMG and accompanying troops I spoke of above. |
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| Paratroops converge on two surviving Sikhs. Sgt. Rock (from Reaper Miniatures) takes charge. |
There was a third game with Andy monitoring it, but I don't know what happened there.
At the end of all this, I had to meet with a couple who came to the library for some pre-wedding counseling. While I met with them, my daughter, Katie was introduced to Disposable Heroes! She is an experienced gamer with an Elvish army for Warmaster and some crazy D&D and Traveller characters. She fought Tyler (her fencing master) and seemed to enjoy the game. Once we went home, Tyler came over and she and Robby played him in a War of 1812 game using Iron Ivan's This Very Ground rules.
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| Katie, Marty, Kevin, Tyler, and Steven (in cap) work out a small scenario in "Patton's Dream" (USA vs. USSR) |
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| Katie's Soviets take the house and watch the SU-100 advance. |
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| My daughter thought the "Commissar Rule" was a good one. "Fail morale and retreat or pop one guy with the Commissar? It's a no-brainer!" |
The Boot Camp idea was a good one and a worthwhile activity. Most of the regulars are more familiar with the rules now. Everybody has their favourite army as well.
A few notes:
- American squads are massive and tough to deal with.
- I got to figure out how to maneuver troops on a cluttered board.
- Just about everything is vulnerable.
So this proves that there are serious female gamers. Katie has also played Napoleonics with us. (this is from her mom - who's played historical games since 1978!)
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