CHAIN OF COMMAND - The Tale of Sergeant Toad

 This week we stuck with WW2, but returned to land warfare with an old chestnut, 'Chain of Command'. One of my favourite rulesets, but a game we've not played now for several years. No particular reason for this lapse, but there are so many good rule systems out there, for all sorts of  different actions and periods, that we're spoilt for choice.

My preferred scale, for Chain of Command, is 1/48th. If I was starting today I would probably go for 28mm figures, from one of the many nice ranges available, but when I began collecting, for Chain of Command, the 28mm figures then available were just not to my taste. I prefer my figures to have more naturalistic proportions than the heroic style figures of yesteryear. Even so the footprint of my 1/48th figures isn't much different from 28mm. Although, the game scales pretty much to 15mm figures, I think the game really needs larger figures. Whereas, there is a lot to be said for having the figure scale matching the ground scale, in my view, the smaller scales lose a lot of the character needed for large skirmish games. I find that there is a great deal of flavour added by being able to identify individual named leaders, or indeed being able to easily pick out which figure is carrying the Bren gun. Mind you that could just be down to my ageing eyesight!

The down side is that, on a standard 6ft by 4ft table, the larger figures always seem to be bunched up in amorphous blobs, rather than realistic tactical formations. So this game was to be something of an experiment. I wanted the feel of a 15mm or true ground scale game, but using larger figures. My solution was to increase all measurements by a factor of one and a half. Hence, 4 inches in the rules would equate to 6 inches on the table top (easily achieved by creating custom rulers or measuring sticks). Admittedly, this is not quite on a parity with 15mm as really I should have increased all the measurements by, at least, a factor of two. However, I wanted to keep the table to a reasonable size. I figured that a standard 6 by 4ft table becomes 9 by 6ft, if increased by a factor of one and a half. At the club, we have several tables of this size, but more importantly two standard 6 by 4 tables pushed together give an 8 by 6 ft table - which is close enough.

As this game was to be a 'refresher', to reacquaint ourselves with the rules, we kept it simple and fielded a basic British infantry platoon against the equivalent German platoon. There were to be no supports and we opted for the basic patrol scenario.

Despite the simple stripped down format, the game was great fun, and provided a tactical challenge for both sides. The larger table and increased measurements also worked a treat and the game looked great. 

British deploy in the lane

The German flank attack comes in as a 'blob'! They obviously didn't get the memo.

The British react, under cover of smoke from the 2 inch mortar.

British about to attack through the smoke. Unfortunately, the Germans end the turn
and remove the smoke with a Chain of Command Dice.

A firefight followed, in which the British used a Chain of Command Dice to 'interrupt' and get the first shot in.

Typically, my dice luck failed me. I got the next phase and tried again - with exactly the same result. 28 dice, needing 4+ and I get a mere 6 hits!

British reinforcements move up and the Germans retreat to behind the barn.

The platoon sergeant sends the right flank section on a flanking move through the fields.
Whilst he himself remained in the lane under cover behind a large hedge!

The light mortar lays smoke to cover the flank attack.
Perhaps I should have done this BEFORE moving into the open field

The right flank section comes a cropper, breaks and flees the table.

Meanwhile, the Germans have been chased from the barn and the
British left flank section has reached  the central road.

Unfortunately, we had to leave it there - as the pub called! A great game that could still have gone either way.

Much hilarity was caused by the British platoon sergeant who seemed to have a knack of staying out of harms way. At one point he was isolated on the extreme right flank, having just sent his men forward to be slaughtered in the open field. Could he really be dodging action? I raced him back towards the centre and reached the farmhouse. My opponent uncharitably opined that he would hide in the house and emerge disguised as a washerwoman . This occasioned much amusement and references to Toad of Toad Hall - all very funny but I guess you had to be there! Nevertheless, the unfortunate platoon sergeant has now been christened Sergeant Toad for evermore.