This weeks reinforcements

 The Jungle Vegetable Patch is Neutral

At 15mm I find that individual pieces of table scatter can often be overlooked and lost on the tabletop due to their small size. To get around this issue I'm now building small vignettes with which I can decorate the table.  I finished the second of these this week - a second garden plot. 
Based on 2mm mdf (which I can cut to shape and size with a Stanley knife) these are designed to be modular if required.

The fence, barrels and cart are all printed in FDM from free STL files found on the web, while the crops are various types of flock, clump and static grass and tree is also scratch made from wire and artificial moss. The tree and cart are not attached to the base to ease storage. The crops have all been sealed with thinned PVA and so are nice and robust.

Both these pieces have virtually no impact on gameplay, but they help strengthen the aesthetic and that is important to me.

Table Design

Laying out a Battlefield 

The CoC rule book provides six missions, ranging from a Patrol action to a full blown Attack on an Objective, but very deliberately rather than providing a scenario map a brief précis of the suggested terrain is provided. This means that each mission can be repeatedly played with the terrain and table layout differing every time. Scenario maps are typically provided in Pint Size Campaigns as these,for the main, are recreating specific actions at known locations. 

One advantage or disadvantage of playing at 15mm, depending on your point of view, is that it allows for more terrain to be used as each terrain piece has a substantially smaller footprint than its equivalent at 28mm while still being played on the standard 6'x4' table. To my mind this allows for slightly more complex or detailed layouts. However I must admit that I find laying out a table challenging as it is difficult to know how much terrain to put down and what is an appropriate and balanced layout. 

Mission Two -The Probe

The terrain guide for this advises "This table represents one force's outpost line. The ground should be terrain typical of the region but should have a limited number of buildings which can be occupied as small observation posts and defensive positions. One or two roads may be present with tracks leading off them."

At present my terrain is predominately for the Normandy region, although I'm slowly building up pieces for the Market Garden area, and so I try and recreate something that looks vaguely Norman when laying out a table based on the numerous photos I have viewed over the years. I have no real methodology for this and first and foremost try for a natural look with a strong visual aesthetic although I generally have in mind the two sides of the table which will belong to the attacker. Once the layout is complete I always ask my opponent if he wants to move anything, although to date he's never done so.

This is the table I put together yesterday for the Probe mission, with the rear and left edges, as viewed, being the attackers potential start lines. Which edge is used and whether the attack will be along the short or long axis of the table will be determined by a die roll before the Patrol Phase is undertaken as per the mission rules.

Two hedge lined roads crossing the map in both axis, with a couple of junctions and smaller tracks, three houses and two barns, along with a small orchard and some fields. Seems to match the Mission Terrain Guide and hopefully is balanced from both the attacker and defenders perspective.

I took the opportunity to draw a rough sketch of the layout for future reference and from this created a scenario style map which will enable me to recreate it in the future. Given it can be played in four directions this offers a great deal of flexibility, and with a little tweaking it can probably be used for each of the six mission types as well, or form the basis for a brand new layout.

And now to see how it plays out.

This weeks reinforcements

 Carriers

This week sees the completion of a Universal Carrier (complete with recce team), a Loyd Carrier, and M9A1 halftrack. All are in the markings of 1st Rifle Brigade which was the motorised infantry battalion of 7th Armoured Division.  The Loyd Carrier acted as the prime mover for the 6pdr anti-tank gun.

The carrier recce team consists of a Bren gun team and a junior leader. The leader is a cut down Peter Pig figure, while the remaining three figures are made from two part putty with heads from Peter Pig. These guys can nip around the battlefield and jump out as required. 

This weeks reinforcements

 

A bit of this and bit of that.

Still working on getting all the various infantry support units completed for the British and finished off some Sappers this week. I can mix and match these figures to reflect the task(s) for which the team is being used.

And the printer has also been busy this week.

Various Flak wagons. These still need to be worked on and cleaned up a little before I can start painting them.

What makes Chain of Command so special - Part Two

Friction, Chaos, Command dice and Chain of Command points.

Clausewitz had this to say about Friction 

Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.

Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.

It explains the countless minor, unpredictable, and compounding obstacles that make the simplest military action or plan incredibly difficult to execute in reality. Too much Friction and chaos starts to creep in and control can ebb away.

So what does any of this have to do with CoC? 

Well Clausewitz also had this to say 

Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.

CoC has several mechanisms that mean uncertainty and chance, and so by extension Friction, are always just a die roll away. This can be for good or bad in the game. (Luckily for us only our little toy soldiers have to deal with the danger and exertion.)

Command Dice

With each of the six possible die rolls resulting in a different outcome in game you can never be sure that you can actually carry out the actions you may have planned for any given phase, (and possibly been building up to for the last few phases) 

Roll                     Result

1                         Activate one Team

2                         Activate one Section

3                        Activate one Junior Leader

4                        Activate one Senior Leader

5                        Add one Chain of Command point

6                        Turn Sequence  

Typically each core platoon will start with five command dice, but the dice have no memory and so results will be random each phase.

Some example rolls

1x1, 2x2, 1x4, 1x5 -> activate one team, two sections, one SL, and gain a  CoC point.

1x3, 1x5, 3x6         -> activate one JL, gain a CoC point, retain being the active player for the next phase and grant the opponent a CoC point.

1x1, 2x2, 1x3, 1x5 -> activate one team, two sections, one JL and gain a CoC point.

None of the above rolls are better than the others without the context of the specific game underway. The second set of rolls could be very powerful as you now have the benefit of playing two phases in a row, however if you wanted to activate a team that has no attached leader you are out of luck. 

Chance and uncertainty leading to Friction. 

If you don't like this concept then CoC is probably not the game for you as in every phase this uncertainty is present.

Chain of Command Points

Chain of Command Points are another mechanism by which Friction can be created, but in this case typically by throwing a spanner into the opponents plan.

Spending six points allow you to 

• Interrupt an enemy phase, allowing a friendly unit (unpinned section team, or crew position) to move or fire.

• End the Turn, which sees the cessation of mortar and smoke barrages, the removal of Tactical, Overwatch and Suppressing Fire markers, and sees Stunned Leaders recover among other things

• Carry out an Ambush - this can be a very powerful disruptive action which I will talk about in a future post.

• Avoid a Morale test

• Move a JOP

As can be seen these are powerful actions which when used well will likely disrupt the opponents plans and cause them Friction. They are wholly outside of their control and wrest an element of initiative away from them often at  critical moments. In addition spending three points allows for either "React Fire" or "Hit the Dirt" during the opponents phase again disrupting their plans although perhaps to a lesser extent. The downside of course is that the points can only be spent once and so have to be built back again before these options become available again. 

We encounter Friction in our everyday lives - being delayed due to traffic, some piece of kit or equipment not working when required, being tired and making less than optimal decisions. The list goes on. For this reason I find it somewhat odd when some gamers complain that they dislike rules or games where they are not fully in control. CoC makes not pretence in this regard. You can lose control at a critical juncture and not regain it for sometime. You have to deal with this and make do. To me this is very true to life.

Two final quotes from our favourite Prussian

 War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.

No other human activity is so continuously or universally bound up with chance. And through the element of chance, guesswork and luck come to play a great part in war.

Chain of Command, while only a game, gets very close to the core premise of both these quotes. You do not have full knowledge of the situation, you need to make educated guesses, and luck may favour you as the player or not. Exactly what I want in a set of rules and one of the main reasons I enjoy CoC so much.

Do you like the Friction the game creates or do you find it a frustration 

 Let me know in the comments.

If you missed it - part one can be found here

What makes Chain of Command so special - Part One

This weeks reinforcements

 Fourth Section 

Back from a weeks holiday in Sorrento, but I did manage to get these guys painted either side of the holiday.

My fourth British Infantry section - an important and flexible potential Support purchase. I have used figures from the Peter Pig pack 488. British Late War rifles advancing in light kit. This differentiates this section from my core three sections who form the base platoon. Not that it can be seen in the photos but I have painted the shoulder titles for these figures in dark green reflecting that they are members of 1st Rifle Brigade, the Motor Battalion for 7th Armoured Division. My core infantry platoon are painted with red shoulder titles as they belong to 1/5th Queens Royal Regiment and are wearing haversacks. 

The cost for an additional British infantry section is five support points but fielding a fourth section allows for a lot of manoeuvre potential, particularly for an attacker, and adds a further 12 FP dice (excluding the JL) to the equation. Paired with a SL this section can provide a potent base of fire (utilising both "Five Rounds Rapid" and "Concentrated Fire" in the same phase) while still allowing for two manoeuvre sections and a reserve section.