Gaming Double-Header! SEVEN DAYS TO THE RIVER RHINE & COMMANDS AND COLORS ECW!

A truly epic day of gaming yesterday as Ken and I finished our Cold War battle with SEVEN DAYS TO THE RIVER RHINE featuring Ken's excellent 15mm Team Yankee Soviets against my 15mm West Germans.  Again, we played the "capture" scenario and a hard-fought Cold War nail biter ensued.  We closed up shop at 4:00pm and I prepared myself for some Commands and Colors ECW "Hammer and Tongs" action at Brian's house.

Pictures will tell the story for the most part here.

Marder in a hide position at the Aldi.

 Ken weighted his right with the motorized infantry in BTRs.  They came barreling down the road at top speed and were promptly dispatched by auto-cannon fire. from my Marder.  I also had West German infantry in the Aldi preparing the Carl G for close action!

Note the burning BTR to the left and the ton of yellow dice representing command tokens on the right!

 This time I'm trying to not give up my hidden positions until the last possible moment and Ken starts putting the pressure on right away with his reinforcements from turn 2.

Leo on the left in the village firing at the oncoming BTRs.  Ken would eventually switch tactics, seizing the hill in front of the village which protects his advancing infantry from fire.  It's a tactical mistake I will pay for dearly!

Firing against Ivan's oncoming vehicles.  I feel like I have this flank "locked down"

West Germans at the McDonald's

 After stalling out and losing a platoon's worth of transports and some infantry squads, Ken starts the advancing on the his left with his T-64s.  Trouble!

I take one out.  This Leopard I has been very busy!

 All apologies to Ken, I kept reading the stats from he T-64A instead of the "B" model.  Ken paid for the extra armor and performance from the B model.  We realized this around the end of turn 4.  Sorry Ken!  Speaking of turns, Ken tries out his attack helicopter.  Luckily I have an "air cover" card waiting to be played for just such an eventuality!  I roll lucky and down the Hind!

On they came!  T-64s bounding towards their objective.

Ken uses a tactics card that has Precision Guided Munitions (krasnopol?)  and targets a leo I with it!  Recce coming in handy!

cool pic.  cool model.

burning leo i on the road.

 Sensing that he's not going to get infantry up the right flank, Ken opts to send them up the middle with a covered route behind a large hill which I foolishly left unguarded...  It's a great call and Ken slips his infantry up to the treeline and takes out my Leopard I from close range!  Crap!

Another burning Leopard I.

The Leo's wingman comes up and fires on the infantry in the treeline!  RED 2 SCRATCH MY BACK!

Ken's advance on the farmhouse/mill here turns up a West German squad waiting in ambush.  There are more marders and Milan teams guarding the northern approach to the village.  Ken dismounts his infantry and advances on the farmhouse!

Endgame for me as I hit my breakpoint with the destruction of the Milan team in the enclosed farm!  What a great game!

We broke the action off when my Germans reached their breakpoint.  What a fun but exhausting game!  I really feel like 7 Days evokes the feeling of a good, tactical fight at the company level but I will say a company is about the limit that a player will want to control.  Anymore than that and I feel the game will start to overwhelm the controlling player, unless you do multi-player, which also comes with its share of difficulties.  All in all a great game, and Ken handled his Soviets well playing true to life tactics and seeing them pay off.  It speaks to the great strengths of the 7D system (and the Iron Cross system!).

Later that evening I went to Brian's for some outstanding English Civil War action, but using a kit-bashed version of the Commands and Colors Ancients rules (and cards).  WOW is all I have to say.  This game rocked and really evoked the flavor of the period I felt.  Brian's changes and mods were perfect!

I was so engrossed in the game that I only took a few pictures but they are excellent pictures and show how awesome these CC games look with miniatures.  Naturally I played the Royalists...

My infantry in the center!

 I played against Rich and both of us came to grips rather quickly, opting for aggressive action.  The entire game took a little over 3 hours.

Cavalry on the flanks of course!  Rich wisely used infantry to cover the cavalry action and properly supported his troops, and also allowed room for them to retreat!  not me!

The battlefield looked good!

A swirling cavalry battle!

Fortune shined on me during the first half of the battle and I think at one point i was ahead 6 to 2 but Rich had a magnificent breakthrough with his cavalry on my left and also was properly using his infantry to shoot up my infantry opposing him.  Something I was not doing properly.  Rich played a great game and he caught up in a matter of about 2 or 3 card pulls!  I was busy setting my infantry up in the center for a crushing blow, all the while Rich was focusing on wearing down my units.  It was a good move and after a very good round of Cavalry combat, Rich ended up taking the game! 

All in all I'm thankful for a fun, relaxing day of gaming with friends and I cannot wait to play more 7 Days or Commands and Colors!  Sadly my "Stay-Cation" is coming to an end and it's back to reality on Monday!