Pocket Panzers

This past weekend A month ago (yikes!), I was lucky enough to join not one but two games of Chain of Command during Virtual Lard 6. Interestingly, both of them involved the proposed German invasion of the British Isles - one during Fall Grün, the invasion of Ireland, and Unternehmen Seelöwe, the invasion of England. This battle report will cover the first game, pitting the Irish Army against German motorized troops. I was playing Germans alongside Brendan, and we had a 3-squad rifle platoon with two Senior Leaders, a light mortar team, a tripod MG-34, and two armored cars: a 221 and a 222. I had nominal control over the armored cars and the support teams, but as we shared 5 command dice, we had to work together. The game host, Karl, provided all of the models, the lovely table, and also created the scenario. Karl also provided me some of his photos of the game, which are much nicer than the screenshots I was able to get through Zoom. As this game was played virtually and it was harder ...

  Last Saturday was Virtual Lard 5 - the Too Fat Lardies community's answer to pandemic gaming restrictions. I played in VL4 back in January and was lucky enough to join a game of CoC hosted by Marc Renouf, who wrote a Pint-Sized Campaign set during Operation Crusader. The game was played through Zoom, so my ability to get photos was somewhat limited, and I have used some taken by Marc to supplement. We had multiple cameras set up and it was surprisingly natural to see the table, so major kudos to Marc for his stellar hosting. This scenario takes us to Libya on Sunday, 23 November, 1941, during Operation Crusader. The Germans of 15. Panzer-Division are fresh off the victory of sacking the British 4th Armored Brigade's headquarters the day before and are wheeling south to join up with Italian armored forces, smash the remaining British forces in the Sidi Rezegh area, and bring Operation Crusader to a grinding halt. On the morning of 23 November - a German protestant holiday call...