Chain of Command - A Soviet Scout Squad!

Oh dear... I sort of knew that hitting retirement just as the Lockdown came into force was going to result in a few very random weeks as far as hobbying was concerned! I've completed the painting of two Clash of Spears armies and then, I had a burst of activity on some medieval knights, caused by accidentally re-reading my long dormant Lion Rampant rule set and then...

I knew that, at some point, I was going to be digging out my Warlord Soviets again, because I had already decided that Chain of Command was the way forward with World War II skirmishing, rather than Bolt Action, and my Russians would need a little tinkering with to fit in with the Chain of Command army list. Not that I don't like Bolt Action, I just think that Chain of Command is a heap better rule set, as it is, apart from many other things, much more focussed on the sharp end of infantry combat.

One of the decisions I made when I was painting my Soviets for Bolt Action, was to field a squad of SMG armed infantry and these don’t appear as an option when you want to field a rifle platoon in Chain of Command! The list of support squads in the Chain of Command rule book does have a "Scout Squad" however, consisting of a junior leader and two sections, each with two SMGs and two rifles. This would employ five of the SMGs that I'd already painted and would give me four more riflemen to paint. As it is nearly two years since I painted any Soviets, I thought that this would get me nicely back into the painting groove, because I also need to paint up a few more riflemen to complete the third rifle squad required in the rules. 

In Chain of Command, the use of scouts is defined under the Soviet National Characteristics, where they are referred to as Razvedchiki, and each team is allowed to move with 1 or 2 D6 and assume a Tactical stance at the end of the move. For someone who chose Soviets because commanding them means you don’t need to concern yourself with anything as complicated as thinking, this is quite a revolutionary concept and may take some time and cerebral effort to get used to!

Appearing, as they do, in List 5 in the Support Lists, the Razvedchiki might not be fielded too often in campaigns to come, but they are a welcome addition to my Rifle platoon and, at the outset, before casualties are taken, they are composed as follows:

Serzhant Usilov Makarovich – squad leader 

Первый Команда:

Maxim Pavlovich (SMG)

Novoseltsev Fyodorovich  (SMG)

Tarasik Victorovich (Rifle)

Vedeneyev Maximovich (Rifle)

Второй Команда:

Arsenyev Borisovich (SMG)

Dementyev Nikitovich (SMG)

Gavrikov Dmitrivich (Rifle)

Zharkov Filippovich (Rifle)

As you may have noticed, the name generator I am using tends to apply the same four letters to the end of surnames!

A Knight's Tale... The Story Continues.

Otto von Wassenberg…

Just after sunset on Friday 22^nd September 1415, two cloaked and hooded figures stepped out of the doorway of a lowly miserable ale house and joined a mass of desolate humanity anxiously forcing their way southwards towards the Pont de Rouen and the uncertain destiny that awaited them now that the city had fallen to the army of the English King. Beyond the devastated breech in the city walls, where, even now, English soldiers were pouring into the city, were the forces of the Duke of Clarence and, only when that gauntlet had been run, could the two friends begin to think about making their way across Normandy to the relative safety of the chateau, about which they had spoken so often over the previous few weeks.

Since August, Otto von Wassenberg and his new found comrade in arms, Guy de Haudricourt had given their utmost in the defence of Harfleur under their commander, the Sire de Goucourt, but now, with the army of the Dauphin sitting idly by miles to the south, the city had fallen and its citizens brutally expelled by the English. Guy, one of the many Norman knights who had answered the call to defend Harfleur had been wounded during the terrifying bombardment by King Henry’s massive train of artillery and the German knight, Otto, had sworn to return him to the woman he had married just weeks before the siege began.

Otto was a mercenary knight from a minor branch of the Wassenberg family from the far away Duchy of Cleves. The main branch of the family had, for centuries, been Dukes of Cleves but their line died out in 1368 when Duke Johann passed away with no child to succeed him. In 1415, Otto found himself fighting in the army the French king and, when the call had gone out for volunteers to join de Goucourt, his love of danger and adventure, not to mention a little fame and glory, had driven him, as it always did, to step forward and accept the challenge. Ahead of the two friends now lay a journey, fraught with danger, of more than seventy miles across Normandy. It was a journey that would take them between the armies of the English to the north and the French to the south and, if successful, would lead them to the Chateau of Hardricourt and the Lady Eleonore.

To be continued…

Lion Rampant... A Knight's Tale.

Having put the finishing touches to two armies for Clash of Spears during this period of lockdown and self-isolation, I found myself in a situation where I really wanted to get on and get some more painting done while I had both the opportunity and the inclination. On the bookshelf above my painting bench was a copy of Lion Rampant medieval skirmish rules by Daniel Mersey, which I had bought some years ago. Having had a re-browse through the rules a germ of an idea began to take shape which would involve modelling some of the very wonderful Perry Miniatures, Battle of Agincourt English and French 28mm figures without pitching English and French armies against each other! The story of the first character in the story appears below… read on to find out more…


Sir Thomas Kegworth...

The origins of Sir Thomas are, I’m afraid dear listener, lost in the mists of time, shrouded in mystery and legend and, if you were ever foolhardy enough to ask the man himself to tell you his story, that question would be the last thing that you would ever utter. Rumours and whispers tell that Thomas was a veteran soldier who sailed to France in the army of King Henry in 1415. To begin with, his tale was like that of many thousands of others in that army, but, following the deadly siege of Harfleur events took a turn which were to change the life of Thomas and, indeed, countless others forever. It is said that Thomas got into a brawl with a veteran knight, befuddled with alcohol, in an upstairs room of a squalid and unsavoury ale house. Some say that the struggle was caused by a game of Find the Lady and others, that a mademoiselle of disreputable virtue was the origin of the quarrel. Whatever the cause, in the ensuing struggle, Thomas dispatched the knight with a dagger’s thrust to the heart. Fearing the consequences of his actions, Thomas fled the city, taking many of the dead knight’s possessions with him.

At some point thereafter, “Sir Thomas” joined and later took command of, a band of desperate deserters, brigands and ne’er-do-wells, eking out a miserable living by preying on the defenceless villages in the area of the Eu Forest in Normandy. Using his military experience and newly acquired nobility, Sir Thomas turned the outlaw band into a disciplined and ruthless fighting force, which became so efficient in extracting what it needed from the local populace, that they became known as La Morte Noir (The Black Death!) an epithet believed to originate from the black lion rampant, which Thomas wore emblazoned upon the jupon he had acquired from the Knight he slew in Harfleur. Indeed, so proficient did Le Morte Noir become in their despoliation of the land that were forced to move on, draining the very life blood of each new community they descended upon, their infestation bringing misery and despair to their victims. As their progress took them ever eastward through Normandy, their notoriety drew more and more outlaws, exiles and outcasts to their banner. Then, one fateful day, Le Morte Noir arrived before the somewhat dilapidated walls of a chateau near the village of Haudricourt. The events of that day were to have a profound impact upon Sir Thomas and the ever growing band of mercenaries under his command; in their attempt to bring the local populace under their heel, they would encounter an opponent the like of which they had never encountered before, a man with royal blood flowing in his veins and a determination to defend the place he called home.

To be continued…