TY 6mm Lessons Learned 3

Our escalation league had our monthly meeting and this post is more of a battle report than a true Lessons Learned post, but keep reading as I do talk about mistakes made during the game. Hate to spoil the ending for everyone, but my East German T-72M Panzer Bataillon received more than it gave and would have been completely done in if we had played to the end. Anyway, on with the show!

I had the table all set up before anyone made it in, so after the usual hour or so of kibbitzing, we got down to business. Both Brandon and I have built US and Warsaw Pact forces, so I mixed up a red and a blue card behind my back and let Brandon pick a card. He got blue, so his M113 Armored Cavalry Troop faced my East German T-72M Panzer Bataillon. He picked Maneuver and I picked Attack, and rolling on the mission table, we got Contact. Contact gives us both Reserves, the Attacker getting Immediate, and the Defender getting Scattered Delayed as well as Ambushers. The first of many jokes of "Damnit, Hans!" *smack!* as a disgruntled officer or NCO smacks poor Hans in the back of the helmet for his transgressions begins. 

The set up. The black buildings are 3d printed, Grouchy approves.

We are working on expanding our terrain options. 

The East German forces. Yes, I need to get on with painting them.

The Americans. Didn't he do a good job on those Pattons?

Brandon shocked at the T-72 horde about to be unleashed in his direction.

The East German Reserves.

The American Reserves and Ambushers.

We set up, the Americans fairly conservatively (the big gun Pattons all being in Reserve or in Ambush), with the East Germans throwing the Aufklarung BMPs and a Kompanie of T-72s down the central road. The roads (that are not pieces of paper we cut up and wrote stuff on) are from GCMini and can be found here. Yes, more painting needs to happen on all the terrain bits and the minis. Damnit, Hans!

The view from the East German side, post-deployment.

2S1 Gvozdika ("Carnation") arty overwatching one of the American objectives.

The central road. Aufklarungs Zugs are cheap and give you Spearhead, useful to any WarPact force.

And the Shilkas. Was not expecting air units at 50 points, but Shilkas are good for infantry and light armor. Four-barreled 23mm cannons are not to be ignored.

The center of the American forces, from their side of the table.

That is a lot of tanks at the other end of the road.

The Scout Section on the left.

The Scout Section on the right.

Attacker's first turn, no Reserves come in (damn the luck), and I charge the Panzer Kompanie straight up the main road, full on Road Dash, complete YOLO move to get my tanks to grips with the other team as soon as possible and hoping to cause as much damage before the Pattons showed up. Meanwhile the BMP Scouts popped over the hill and blew up the M901 ITV in that Scout Section, while the Shilkas and the Bataillon commander rolled towards the Scout Sections to their immediate fronts. Damnit Hans, we should have destroyed that M113 and wiped out the whole section!

BMPs get the ITV. The die is a reminder to make a Unit Morale check.

The Bataillon CO could not quite make it far enough to shoot at that Scout Section, or even Spot it for an Artillery Barrage from the Carnations.

You Only Live Once!

The Defending Americans go, revealing one unit of Pattons in Ambush, which show up directly in front of the T-72s that YOLO'd down the central road. The VADS, wanting nothing to do with tanks that they cannot penetrate even from the side, scamper off to take shots at the Aufklarungs BMPs, which they manage to destroy one, while the remaining M113 bails the other one. The Stinger troops (represented by Avenger HMMWVs, which actually make more sense than trying to fire a Stinger from the open top of a soft-side Hummer), and Force CO go hide behind the trees. The freshly-arrived Pattons Blitz onto the table and manage to kill only one T-72. The other Scout Section fires a TOW-2 and completely misses their target (Code Brown! we are at Code Brown!). 

The classic Ma-Deuce .50cal is not totally useless.

I am surprised more of the T-72s did not die in this engagement.

That is a beauty of a fatal funnel.

The VADS' rally point is Grouchy Smurf.

Turn two, the East Germans get Reserves (a Panzer Kompanie as you want to bring the biggest hammer to the fight that you can) who immediately engage the VADS around Grouchy, the forward panzer element unmasks their guns and takes it to the Pattons who just appeared to their front, the last remaining Aufklarungs BMP (who made their morale check to not scamper off to the hinterlands) adjusted position and engaged the Scout Section along with the still charging ahead Shilkas to no result. The YOLO Panzer Kompanie had some success with the Pattons, bailing two of their number, while the newly arrived panzers outright kill two VADS and bail a third (the fourth shot knocked over the statue of Grouchy, not one of us accidentally bumping it, no not at all). The Bataillon CO finally crosses to the other side of the trees and takes out half of the Scout Section, and then I show that I ranged in my Carnations on the remaining ITV, but I honestly cannot remember who did the spotting, but since it did not appear that I did no damage, I am going to call it a wash. Thinking on it more, the most likely one is the Carnations were spotting for themselves, but still, no damage from that arty bombardment, so it does not really matter.

Unmask, swarm, and attack!

A lot going on over on the East German's right flank.

That is one tough Scout Section. Damnit Hans! *smack!*

This one is succumbing to direct cannon fire, but it is a M113 and that is a 125mm cannon.

Yeah, I just cannot recall how this Ranged In token ended up here.

The United States' Army's finest strikes back, with some very excellent rolls by my opponent. No more Reserves arrive for them, but the Pattons already in the fight take out every one of the T-72s deep in their side of the battle, destroying four tanks with six shots. The VADS remount and swing to their left to counter the Shilkas rushing forward. The Scout Sections, on the other hand, fail their morale checks and scamper away. RNGeezus giveth and taketh away.

And there goes the YOLO Panzer Kompanie.

The VADS adjust to go face down the Shilkas.

That is a big hammer.

Six shots for four kills, the Pattons are a good, inexpensive option for American commanders.

The East Germans press the attack, the formation CO pushing to the crest of the hill and calling in artillery on the Pattons. The last Volksarmee Reserve, the BMP-1 OP, comes in and immediately jumps as far forward as it gets to start spotting for the Carnations. The Shilkas move into the trees and try to cross to head for the next copse of trees, but many of them fail their cross check and so they sit at the edge of this treeline. The new Panzer Kompanie moves forward at Tactical Speed in the hopes of getting a line of sight to any of the opposing forces, but fails to. The remaining BMP-1 of the Aufklarungs Zug adjusts and takes a potshot with its cannon at the Pattons and misses. I should have tried the Sagger instead, as a hit from that would have been more effective if it had hit. The bombardment does not damage any of the Pattons, and the Attacker's turn ends with a sizzle instead of a bang. This is where I, as the East German player, should have been consolidating my forces. To be honest, I should have been doing that from the beginning. Throughout this fight I was throwing one Unit at one of my opponent's Units, instead of ganging up multiple of my Units on single Units of his so I could remove them (either outright or dropping them to the point of making Morale checks) from the battlefield quicker and more reliably. 

I was too rash with the first Panzer Kompanie, and too timid with this one. I should have moved them faster and consolidated with the Shilkas to their front right.

All the East Germans are on the board.

Ranging in on the Pattons. We use the half size artillery templates from GCMini, found here.

The Carnations are a great deterrent for this objective, but I really should have gone mobile with them and used them in direct fire mode.

The new armor column of the East Germans.

The Pattons, unaffected by the artillery bombardment.

The US fails to bring more of their Reserves forward, but still manage to come to grips with the East Germans and wipe the floor with them. The Pattons and VADS Blitz move (the little lightning bolt counters were 3d printed by Brandon, the US player in this scenario, and a great reminder which units used Blitz moves) to unmask their barrels and laid the hurt down on the Volksarmee. Six shots on the T-72s results in two outright brewed up panzers and two Bailed. The VADS, meanwhile, destroy one Shilka and Bail one other. The US Command element and ADA folks still continue to cower behind cover, as they are not of much use (one .50cal MG and some Stinger missiles with no aircraft on the field), so they stayed out of the line of fire.

Brandon uses a M60A2 Starship mini to denote the CO of his Pattons, and I think it looks great.

The T-72 crews are not having a good day. It is all Hans' fault. Damnit Hans! *smack!*

The VADS tear up the Shilkas. I should have kept the Shilkas all within the tree line as soon as one of them failed their cross check to keep the unit in as much cover as possible.

Blitzing Pattons, note the cool token. This is something else I failed to do as the East German player - use those Move Orders, you have access to them for a reason.

The East Germans, far from giving up, rally the forces and press into the attack. The newly arrived from last turn OP and the Force commander dive into cover close to the Pattons and opposing command team. No Pattons were directly visible, so the Volksarmee commander calls in an arty strike where it does not do a whole lot. The OP, it turns out, only has an MG on their BMP-1, even though in the book and in the Battlefront 15mm model, they are modeled to have the 73mm cannon and Sagger missile. Having thought about it more, I really should have gathered my tanks together with my Carnations and pushed them into direct contact with the Americans, as arty fire just did not do anything for me this whole game. The Panzer Kompanie manages to remount one of their bailed tanks and pushes forward just a bit to get under the 16" rule and outright destroy two Pattons down at the other end of the road, cover or no. When they hit, the T-72s are devastating. The Shilkas fail to remount their one bailed track, but do manage to bail out one of the remaining VADS. There is a glimmer of hope for our plucky, second line WarPact Force.

OP and Commander in new Danger Close positions.

Remount and charge!

The Pattons don't fare well.

Trying to get rid of the VADS.

It was looking good for the East Germans, and then someone started playing the Team America World Police theme song (note: video and song are NSFW), rallying the Americans to seriously begin to jump up and down on the East Germans. The last batch of Pattons finally come in from Reserves, immediately moving to destroy or bail the last of the T-72 Panzer Kompanie. The one bailed VADS remounts and they proceed to destroy the remaining three Shilkas. The remaining two Pattons maneuver towards the opposing Force commander.

'Murica! Sending 105mm of freedom downrange.

Pattons hunting down the lone T-72.

VADS come out over the Shilkas.

T-72s feeling the hate.

Yep, that's a lot of burning tracks.

We forgot to take pics after the next East German turn, but we needed to get through the next turns quickly as Brandon had to head out for the night. Too much time kibbitzing before the game got rolling, which seems to happen for every tabletop wargame or role-playing game I have ever participated in. Anyway, from my spotty memory and the results of the pics we did take after the Americans' final turn, here is what happened. The EG T-72 Force commander maneuvers up and destroys one of the Pattons hunting him. The final Patton in that Formation makes his Morale check, maneuvers for a shot, and destroys the Force commander in retaliation. The two bailed T-72s in the Panzer Kompanie make their remount checks, dive for cover behind a nearby building, but only manage to destroy one of the newly arrived Pattons before they (the Pattons) maneuver themselves, and brew up one of the T-72s in their own version of retribution. The BMP-1 OP with the Force commander maneuvers and calls in another ineffective arty barrage on the Pattons. The VADS begin maneuvering to swing wide of the Panzer Kompanie towards the objective on that side of the table.

Damnit, Hans! *smack*

Americans rolling forward.

"We tried!" cried the T-72 Panzer Kompanie.

Don't mind us, just heading for the objective.

Not that they had done anything, but the last Scout Section in Reserves did come onto the board at the end, and the American M113 Force commander tried to swing out and kill the BMP-1 OP with its M2 .50cal.

And that is where we ended it, awarding the Americans a 7-2 victory. The last T-72 in the Panzer Kompanie would have had to make their Morale check to stay on the table for the whole East German Force not to make a Force Morale check (the Carnations are a part of the Force and not in Divisional Support, though the BMP-1 OP is not in the Force). At this point, one T-72 and three Carnations facing down against four Pattons and a M-901 ITV, especially as separated as they were across the board, just did not have the numbers or RoF to be much of a threat to keep the Americans off their objectives, much less take any in return.

The biggest Lessons Learned, for me as the East German player, was that I need to use my Movement Orders more (read that as "at all"); I need to consolidate my T-72s against Americans as, while I outnumbered him on a tank to tank basis, he outnumbered me in RoF, and fair fights are for suckers; and that artillery is better used to barrage infantry and lightly armored vehicles (like the VADS or the M113 Force commander and HMMWV Stinger troops), or just drive them in and use them in the direct fire role against the Pattons. 

TY 6mm Lessons Learned 2

Lesson #2 - no matter how pretty the miniatures are (or cheap, if there is a sale on), you have to show restraint and make your army list(s) first, then and only then buy only the miniatures on your list. 

Uh-huh, and winged primates shall emerge at high velocity from my rectum. Most tabletop wargamers are like me, and even though what I said makes sense and is the most efficient path to follow, most us lack the self control to follow that advice. Yes, me included. When I first decided to get into Team Yankee 6mm, a few years back now, I bought up a bunch of American and Soviet minis from the original version one TY rulebook. I added some more Americans after the original Stripes book came out for the US, but beyond that, most of what I picked up was rather basic. And too much. Our escalation league is only going to 200 points and even going with the most basic M1 Abrams - not IPM1s, M1A1s, or M1A1HCs - I can use all 20 M1 Abrams I have in my collection, but only if I leave a mere 40 points for all the supporting teams and formations. An Abrams "horde" force would be interesting, but I think it's a bit inflexible, tactically. Yes I can pick up almost everything from the support list - air, artillery, anti-air, infantry - but you just cannot get much of any of it, just a bare smattering. Not to mention that starting with an Abrams force at 50 points, if I did want to build towards that 20 tank horde in the escalation league, means starting with a mere 5 Abrams (the absolute smallest number of M1 Abrams you need to make a legal M1 Armor Company formation) and only 10 points of support elements.

Oh well. With the miniatures I already have in my collection, here are my lists for the next two jumps in our escalation league, from 50 to 75 and on to 100 points.

American M113 Mech Combat Team

The classic infantry strong force. The Americans are not known for having the strongest infantry, without the numbers of the Brits/Soviets and the Dragon ATGM instead of the Milan, and the M113 is one of the weakest APCs out there, with barely any armor, though at least the classic Ma Deuce M2 .50cal is better than the 7.62 FN MAG/M240/G3 that some APCs call their only weapon. Not to mention the Bradley is better than both the M113 and the M901 ITV, but I have not bought any Bradleys and do not want to, nor do I want to let all the M113s and M901s I already have go to waste. Definitely not an optimized force, I went for as strong as I could get it with a bunch of support options, keeping in mind the above limitations.

50pt force

1pt M113 Mech HQ (1 M113 and 1 M16 Rifle team)

6pt M113 Mech Platoon (4 M113s, 3 M47 Dragon teams, 4 M249 teams)

5pt M113 Mech Platoon (3 M113s, 2 M47 Dragon teams, 3 M249 teams, plus extra M47 Dragon team)

5pt M113 Mech Platoon (3 M113s, 2 M47 Dragon teams, 3 M249 teams, plus extra M47 Dragon team)

16pt M60 Tank Platoon (4 M60 Pattons)

3pt M106 Heavy Mortar Platoon (3 M106s)

3pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s)

7pt M109 Artillery Battery (3 M109s, divisional support)

3pt M163 VADS AA Platoon (2 M163s, divisional support)

1pt M113 FIST (1 M113, divisional support)

For the first jump, just more of the same. The Mech Platoons become maxed out, we see a ton more AT firepower in the form of M901 ITVs and a Scout Section, and get a little more artillery and AA. This is definitely a force I will be choosing Defense when it comes time to pick a Mission, as there is hardly any maneuver elements inherent to the force.

75pt force

1pt M113 Mech HQ (1 M113 and 1 M16 Rifle team)

7pt M113 Mech Platoon (4 M113s, 3 M47 Dragon teams, 4 M249 teams, plus extra M47 Dragon team)

7pt M113 Mech Platoon (4 M113s, 3 M47 Dragon teams, 4 M249 teams, plus extra M47 Dragon team)

7pt M113 Mech Platoon (4 M113s, 3 M47 Dragon teams, 4 M249 teams, plus extra M47 Dragon team)

16pt M60 Tank Platoon (4 M60 Pattons)

2pt M113 Scout Section (1 M113 and 1 M901)

6pt M106 Heavy Mortar Platoon (6 M106s)

4pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s TOW-2)

4pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s TOW-2)

4pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s TOW-2)

3pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s)

7pt M109 Artillery Battery (3 M109s, divisional support)

6pt M163 VADS AA Platoon (4 M163s, divisional support)

1pt M113 FIST (1 M113, divisional support)

And again, more of the same. Every section with TOW missiles is now TOW-2 equipped, our venerable M60s have been swapped for M1 Abrams, though with just 4 of them in the platoon, they are not moving far from the M901 "gunline", and we get even more tubes in our arty battery. Still very much a Defense type force when it comes time to choose a mission.

100pt force

1pt M113 Mech HQ (1 M113 and 1 M16 Rifle team)

7pt M113 Mech Platoon (4 M113s, 3 M47 Dragon teams, 4 M249 teams, plus extra M47 Dragon team)

7pt M113 Mech Platoon (4 M113s, 3 M47 Dragon teams, 4 M249 teams, plus extra M47 Dragon team)

7pt M113 Mech Platoon (4 M113s, 3 M47 Dragon teams, 4 M249 teams, plus extra M47 Dragon team)

32pt M1 Tank Platoon (4 M1 Abrams)

3pt M113 Scout Section (1 M113 and 1 M901 TOW-2)

6pt M106 Heavy Mortar Platoon (6 M106s)

4pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s TOW-2)

4pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s TOW-2)

4pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s TOW-2)

4pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s TOW-2)

14pt M109 Artillery Battery (6 M109s, divisional support)

6pt M163 VADS AA Platoon (4 M163s, divisional support)

1pt M113 FIST (1 M113, divisional support)

M60 Patton Armored Combat Team

The M60A3 Patton tank is not quite the M1 Abrams, but is still a terror to both T-55s and T-72s, particularly the "monkey" copies that the East Germans, Poles, and Czechs field in their forces, and is screamingly affordable when compared to the other "apex" tanks out there. This is more of an Attacker type force than the Mech Team, but is not quite as maneuverable as I would like it to be, especially at the 50 point level. The Pattons are good mobile, but not much else in the list is. I will probably pick Attack over Maneuver just to force Night engagements more often, but the majority of the force works better deployed into prepared defensive positions.

50pt force

4pt M60 Armor HQ (1 M60)

12pt M60 Tank Platoon (3 M60s)

12pt M60 Tank Platoon (3 M60s)

3pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s)

3pt M106 Heavy Mortar Platoon (3 M106s)

5pt M113 Mech Platoon (3 M113s, 2 M47 Dragon teams, 3 M249 teams, plus extra M47 team)

7pt M109 Artillery Battery (3 M109s, divisional support)

3pt M163 VADS AA Platoon (2 M163s, divisional support)

1pt M113 FIST (1 M113, divisional support)

Again, if I had waited to build my lists before purchasing minis, I would have more M60s at this point level. But building to what I had already purchased and no more, I am restricted to 10 (two packs of 5 from GHQ, which is still a significant savings over 15mm at $24 vs $100) M60A3s, so I maxed them out to the 10 I have. I could have gone a full two tank HQ element with two four-tank platoons, which would have strengthened each team's morale, but I went instead with a one tank HQ element and three three-tank platoons for a bit more flexibility in my tactical choices. Otherwise, more of the same. The added Scout Sections provide Spearhead to the Force, and provide a modicum of AT firepower. The Mech Platoon gets a boost, as does the AA and the Heavy Mortars.

75pt force

4pt M60 Armor HQ (1 M60)

12pt M60 Tank Platoon (3 M60s)

12pt M60 Tank Platoon (3 M60s)

12pt M60 Tank Platoon (3 M60s)

4pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s TOW-2)

6pt M106 Heavy Mortar Platoon (6 M106s)

2pt M113 Scout Section (1 M113 and 1 M901)

2pt M113 Scout Section (1 M113 and 1 M901)

7pt M113 Mech Platoon (4 M113s, 3 M47 Dragon teams, 4 M249 teams, plus extra M47 Dragon team)

7pt M109 Artillery Battery (3 M109s, divisional support)

6pt M163 VADS AA Platoon (4 M163s, divisional support)

1pt M113 FIST (1 M113, divisional support)

M1 Abrams Armored Combat Team

Even though I started with the M60 formation, it was M1s that I was aimed at all along. Yeah, I could have done it sooner, but as we are trying to keep our games Blue on Red for the league, I knew I needed as many guns at all stages to fight off "horde" WarPact forces. Finally, at the 100 point jump, I felt like I could field a sufficient number of M1s, plus I did not want to buy anymore M60s and I had maxed out those out at the last point jump. I could have just added a platoon worth of M1s onto the M60 force, but at some point you have to go with a base M1 team to get more than four M1s in the force, and the support options are identical between the two forces, so now was a good point to merely replace the M60s with M1s, plus some other little goodies added here and there. And the M1 has been my goal for playing TY since the beginning, both from admiration and from national pride. Even the base M1 is a nasty tank for WarPact forces to deal with, much more so the IPM1 and M1A1/HC variants.

100pt force

8pt M1 Abrams HQ (1 M1 Abrams)

24pt M1 Abrams Tank Platoon (3 M1 Abrams)

24pt M1 Abrams Tank Platoon (3 M1 Abrams)

4pt M901 ITV AT Platoon (2 M901s TOW-2)

6pt M106 Heavy Mortar Platoon (6 M106s)

3pt M113 Scout Section (1 M113 and 1 M901 TOW-2)

3pt M113 Scout Section (1 M113 and 1 M901 TOW-2)

7pt M113 Mech Platoon (4 M113s, 3 M47 Dragon teams, 4 M249 teams, plus extra M47 Dragon team)

14pt M109 Artillery Battery (6 M109s, divisional support)

6pt M163 VADS AA Platoon (4 M163s, divisional support)

1pt M113 FIST (1 M113, divisional support)

East German Mot-Schützen Bataillon

I was not trying for a horde force, but, yeah, Volks Armee infantry, kind of hard to field that force and not go BMP/BTR horde. And why East Germans and not Soviets (or Poles or Czechs)? Or why not wait until the new WarPact book comes out later this year? For the second question, Battlefront has already pushed that back with the global slowdown here at the tailend of the COVID-19 pandemic, and for the first, well, I wanted to go with even cheaper troops than what the Soviets field, and I went East Germans as I have long been fascinated by the thought that the EGs, following WW2 and their annexation by the Soviets, tried very hard to be more Soviet than even the Russians were managing. Something about that German mindset of taking everything (science and technology, social planning, morality) to the extreme, so even while the majority of the nation was chafing at not being a united Germany, so many East Germans were striving to be the best Socialists they could be.

Mot-Schützen Bataillon, pretty much like all the rest - lots of nasty infantry to sit in defense (or assault, if you can keep them from getting pinned on the way to the assault), some tanks for a mobile strike force, some arty, some gun AA (because light armor and infantry just HATE Shilkas chewing them up), and a bunch of BMPs. Again, I went with the units and vehicles I did because that is what I bought - no BMP-2s or -3s, no fancy T-64s or T-80s, nor any T-55 or BTR hordes.

50pt force

1pt Mot-Schützen HQ (1 MPi-KM rifle teams and 1 BMP)

7pt Mot-Schützen Kompanie (4 BMPs, 4 RPG-18 teams, 3 RPG-7 teams, plus an extra BMP and AGS-17 GL team)

6pt Mot-Schützen Kompanie (4 BMPs, 4 RPG-18 teams, 3 RPG-7 teams)

6pt Mot-Schützen Kompanie (4 BMPs, 4 RPG-18 teams, 3 RPG-7 teams)

19pt T-72M Panzer Kompanie (6 T-72Ms)

6pt 2S1 Gvozdika Artillerie Batterie (3 2S1 Carnations)

4pt ZSU-23-4 Shilka Flak Zug (4 Shilkas)

1pt BMP OP (1 BMP, divisional support)

More of the same moving up in points, mostly more infantry. A lot of infantry. Even with as much miniatures as I originally picked up, I had to pick up another pack of Soviet infantry (no one is going to notice the difference at this scale between Soviet and East German infantry, plus GHQ does not make Cold War era East German infantry) to finish out the infantry stands for the 50 point force, so more infantry was going to happen anyway. Also, this is when the BMP horde appears as the list hits 30 BMPs in the deployment. 

75pt force

1pt Mot-Schützen HQ (1 MPi-KM rifle teams and 1 BMP)

15pt Mot-Schützen Kompanie (9 BMPs, 7 RPG-18 teams, 6 RPG-7 teams, 2 PKM teams, plus an extra BMP and AGS-17 GL team)

15pt Mot-Schützen Kompanie (9 BMPs, 7 RPG-18 teams, 6 RPG-7 teams, 2 PKM teams, plus an extra BMP and AGS-17 GL team)

14pt Mot-Schützen Kompanie (9 BMPs, 7 RPG-18 teams, 6 RPG-7 teams, 2 PKM teams)

19pt T-72M Panzer Kompanie (6 T-72Ms)

6pt 2S1 Gvozdika Artillerie Batterie (3 2S1 Carnations)

4pt ZSU-23-4 Shilka Flak Zug (4 Shilkas)

1pt BMP OP (1 BMP, divisional support)

At the next point jump, it is all about support, not so much the infantry. More BMPs, more artillery, and finally, some air support. Not a lot, but a flight of two SU-25 Frogfoots is not very many points (so if they never appear due to poor rolling on my part, I am not too broken up about it) but still a very nasty surprise when they do show up. 

100pt force

1pt Mot-Schützen HQ (1 MPi-KM rifle teams and 1 BMP)

15pt Mot-Schützen Kompanie (9 BMPs, 7 RPG-18 teams, 6 RPG-7 teams, 2 PKM teams, plus an extra BMP and AGS-17 GL team)

15pt Mot-Schützen Kompanie (9 BMPs, 7 RPG-18 teams, 6 RPG-7 teams, 2 PKM teams, plus an extra BMP and AGS-17 GL team)

15pt Mot-Schützen Kompanie (9 BMPs, 7 RPG-18 teams, 6 RPG-7 teams, 2 PKM teams, plus an extra BMP and AGS-17 GL team)

19pt T-72M Panzer Kompanie (6 T-72Ms)

4pt BMP Aufklärungs Zug (4 BMPs)

12pt 2S1 Gvozdika Artillerie Batterie (6 2S1 Carnations)

4pt ZSU-23-4 Shilka Flak Zug (4 Shilkas)

2pt 9K35 Strela-10 Flak Zug (2 SA-13 Gophers)

5pt Grad Raketenwerfer Batterie (3 BM-21 Hails, divisional support)

1pt BMP OP (1 BMP, divisional support)

7pt SU-25 Aviation Company (2 SU-25 Frogfoots, divisional support)

T-72M Panzer Bataillon

Not sure what I want to say about this one. I do like the T-72Ms better than the T-55AM2s the Volks Armee gets, even though their -72s are "monkey copies", which is why I bought them and not the -55s. And really, horde is the only way you can succeed with tanks like the -55, but I want to have different tactical choices. I still try to stuff as many -72s in while still having some support options. I do notice now that I am missing Spearhead from many of my 50 point lists, but managed to get it here, as I have foregone any infantry and went with all vehicles to make this my most mobile, attack-oriented list. 

50pt force

3pt T-72M HQ (1 T-72M)

19pt T-72M Kompanie (6 T-72Ms)

15pt T-72M Kompanie (5 T-72Ms)

2pt BMP Aufklärungs Zug (2 BMPs)

6pt 2S1 Gvozdika Artillerie Batterie (3 2S1 Carnations)

4pt ZSU-23-4 Shilka Flak Zug (4 Shilkas)

1pt BMP OP (1 BMP, divisional support)

This jump in points just brings more tanks to the table, and a few more BMP-1s in the scout section.

75pt force

3pt T-72M HQ (1 T-72M)

19pt T-72M Kompanie (6 T-72Ms)

19pt T-72M Kompanie (6 T-72Ms)

19pt T-72M Kompanie (6 T-72Ms)

4pt BMP Aufklärungs Zug (4 BMPs)

6pt 2S1 Gvozdika Artillerie Batterie (3 2S1 Carnations)

4pt ZSU-23-4 Shilka Flak Zug (4 Shilkas)

1pt BMP OP (1 BMP, divisional support)

I could have definitely continued stuffing more tanks into the formation, but instead, I am using this batch of points to add in fun stuff, like more artillery and air support.

100pt force

3pt T-72M HQ (1 T-72M)

19pt T-72M Kompanie (6 T-72Ms)

19pt T-72M Kompanie (6 T-72Ms)

19pt T-72M Kompanie (6 T-72Ms)

4pt BMP Aufklärungs Zug (4 BMPs)

12pt 2S1 Gvozdika Artillerie Batterie (6 2S1 Carnations)

4pt ZSU-23-4 Shilka Flak Zug (4 Shilkas)

5pt Grad Raketenwerfer Batterie (3 BM-21 Hails, divisional support)

3pt BMP Aufklärungs Zug (3 BMPs)

1pt BMP OP (1 BMP, divisional support)

7pt SU-25 Aviation Company (2 SU-25 Frogfoots, divisional support)

What do I have planned for the future? At this point, I am not too sure. I think for my Americans, I will be combining my formations into one, but keeping my Volks Armee lists separate so I can maximize the better aspects of each. But, as you may have noticed between my last TY post and this one that the changed my T-72 list, so as I have roughly three months before the league hits 125 points, I have some time to ponder and play around with the lists.

Lessons Learned 26

The past couple of sessions have been, well, hectic. Between everyone's normal routine of a few missing here and there, plus my own employer keeping me later than usual, attendance has been spotty. With that in mind, and the ultimate goal of getting everyone together as best we can, and in-person too, now that most of us are successfully vaccinated against COVID-19, we have continued to grind forward as best we can. That is all you can do, as players not showing up to a game is the most common issue with any gaming group. Well, probably the most common issue among gamers is not being able to get along with the rest of the group, but once you get a group that can stand each other long enough to game regularly, the most common issue is having someone miss a session. Which is understandable - no matter how much effort you, the game master, put into your preparations, there is a high likelihood that one of your players will miss that session. We are talking about a pastime here, not their jobs or livelihoods, not their families, just some friends and a game. So if something, anything, else comes up - family emergency, change in work schedule, lack of sleep, illness, whatever - your player is going to miss. All you can do is hope that only one (or two, if you have a larger than average group) player misses per session so that the interruption is as mild as possible. 

Keeping that in mind, I think my most successful method of alleviating this is to have my players leave their characters at my house (where we play our weekly games) and if they are going to miss, their PC is run by someone else who does manage to show up. As I am a more mature DM (read: I'm old) who is also more settled financially, I provide to each of my players a full 3-ring binder for their character, complete with plastic page protectors for character sheets, lined paper for notes, and graph paper for maps (I have discussed this previously). This helps keep each player more organized, and when they have to be handed off, more accessible to the other players. I am also planning in my next session, as we already have one player out due to work schedule conflict and likely another by game time as well, to spend some time at the beginning of the session and discuss some tactics and strategies with the group. Not so much tactics as walking them through their individual PCs and reminding them of their own abilities, clarifying some rules questions, and also introducing them more in-depth to their new Sidekicks. I have two very new players and would like to make sure, as they did not play the majority of the last eleven levels of their PCs like the rest of the party have, exactly what they can do and what they should think about doing with their characters. Those players who have gained Sidekicks, I want to make sure they have a good grasp on their Sidekicks' abilities and what they should be doing, both in and out of combat. Finally, I want to do all of this with as many other players present so that, when the time comes, they are as prepared as possible to run someone else's PC.

I also need to do some rule clarifying, as their is some question on the Polymorph spell and rules for mounted combat. They came up in my last session and I like to ponder them, do some research, and then come back with a definitive answer that everyone hears while not in the thick of battle. Turns out that Polymorph (not True Polymorph, the 9th level spell), you can only turn yourself or some other creature into a Beast, which is but one of the monster types in the game. It is not terribly clear in the spell description - they should have capitalized "beast" like I did - but upon closer inspection of the spell itself there are other clues I should have picked up on, namely "it can't speak, cast Spells, or take any other action that requires hands or Speech". Pretty much all of the other monster types have enough INT to talk, but Beasts are just that, your average, not terribly magical or fantastical, everyday animals. Sure, there is some fantasy amongst their members, as all of the "giant" and "dire" variants of our mundane animals are Beasts, but the rest are just ordinary animals.

A big lesson the party learned is Don't Split the Party. Two of their numbers were off in the woods, leading many giants on a merry chase, while the remaining four (with no Sidekicks nor the high caliber artillery, the Wizard) faced off against two Fire Giants. At the party's current level, this was a tough fight, but to do it without your big guns and support personnel was nigh deadly. It did not help the party any that their tactical decisions were also lacking, as it turns out that Fire Giants laugh at Fire Elementals and spells like Heat Metal. At least in 5e, fire spells do not heal fire-based creatures, as other editions have done, but when the stat block says Damage Immunities: Fire, you do not have to roll any kind of Save, that creature automatically ignores all damage from those types of attacks. Yes, one of the players attempted the classic Cook and Book attack, and the Fire Giant giggled and said something along the lines of "reminds me of home".

The last lesson I attempted to teach the party, though they still think otherwise, is that some fights are just tough. I tend not to throw things at them that they cannot overcome, yet every fight is not balanced to be exactly the right Challenge Rating for their current level. Yes, this last fight they participated in was pretty tough - a Frost Giant, 5 Hill Giants, and 10 Ogres - but the party is 11th level and have a bit more in the way of magical gear compared to other 5e parties (first two campaign arcs we played were translated from 3e, and Third was much more giving when it came to treasure than 5e is), they handled it pretty well. They grumbled of course, made comments about me trying to punish them, but in the end they defeated the enemy. You have to throw tougher fights at your party, not all the time, but every so often so that they do not become bored or complacent. The Angry GM goes into far more depth than I can, you should read at least this article, if not the others in the series. To sum up, sometimes you need to throw an easy fight at the group, sometimes a fight that is balanced to their level, and other times you need to dump something more challenging on them. This way you avoid "bored and complacent" with your party.

TY 6mm Lessons Learned 1

With four of us finally getting together to discuss our Team Yankee in 6mm Escalation League, we got to play some games of Team Yankee and here are a few things I learned from those games. 

It is a game, do not lose sight of your ultimate goals, and watch the turn timer. I played a learning scenario from the original, version one TY rulebook, The Battle for Hill 214. It is a great little scenario, more on that in a minute, and while it was a very close game, I can truthfully say I lost, not because the dice "turned on me", but because of my own decisions. I lost because my separate units kept failing morale checks, and my formation commander was too far away to help them stay on the board. Yes, with 3+/4+ morale stats, those units had an average to better than average chance of sticking it out, but they did not. And that is not my dice's fault, I should have, especially in the late game and after two of my units had already scampered, spent a round moving my commander into a better support position instead of merely sitting and firing. This is a game, after all, and keeping your forces on the field should be as important (if not more than) as killing enemy units yourself. Plus, as my opponent did not have any artillery, there was no need to disperse my units anyway, I should have grouped them closer from the beginning.

The scenarios in any of the books, version one or two, are great little teaching aids, and I highly recommend newer players dip their toes in with those to help learn the rules. We played, as I have already stated, one of the scenarios from the version one rulebook, which you can find the scenarios free to download here, and it showed off a lot of the rules - shooting at night, ambushes, pinning, assaults, and especially unit and formation morale, which is what finally did me in. I suddenly want to play through all of the scenarios from all of the books, both version one and two. Yes, I will have to substitute many of the models for the NATO countries other than America, but I think that is a small, achievable goal, and one that would be of great use to my opponents in the games and myself.

Assaults are grueling for both sides - as the attacker, you do not want to attack enough enemies that they Pin your assaulting force, causing an immediate fallback; as the defender, the Pin is crucial, more so than killing assaulters in defensive fire, as it causes the attackers to fallback, otherwise you will be losing many stands of infantry and vehicles. 

Night fighting is ugly and vision distance is not guaranteed, even for the advanced Thermal Imaging that most of NATO has and the Warsaw Pact does not. Sometimes refraining from shooting for one round and going "dark" while waiting for a better target to come along is preferred, as your opponent may not get enough vision range on their turn to spot that unit. If you are playing NATO and have Thermal Imaging, you should lean toward Attacker when picking the Mission, and if you are the Attacker, pick a night option. You may not roll it on the table in the Missions handout, but when you get it, you will have a distinct advantage over WarPact players. 

You do not have to put your Ambushing units into play away from the rest of your forces - if you are covering a broad front, you can use your Ambushers as a reserve type force to fill in any weak spots in your line when the enemy tries to exploit it. 

Make sure to read and follow all of the setup rules for your scenario, as I had one minefield given to me for the scenario, but I never used it. Would it have won the game for me? Maybe not directly, but making sure your opponent knows where you put a minefield is a good way to get into their head and make them want to bring their forces in from a different angle. And you do not feel so stupid after the game.

That is all I can come up with for our first weekend of the league, more games will be occurring in the near future, and I may even post up pics from the games, as well as painting and terrain tips.

Team Yankee 6mm Escalation League

My local group of Team Yankee 6mm players have formed an escalation league. That is not 100% correct, let me start over from the beginning. Several years ago my life changed pretty dramatically, but since this is my rant to you, the impersonal masses of the internet, that is all the details I am willing to give out. During this upsetting of life's apple cart, I decided that I wanted to get back into some hobbies that I had set aside for the job I no longer had, and also were more sedentary due to me getting older and my knees giving out. Namely, tabletop role-playing games and tabletop wargames. A good friend of mine as well as a coworker both introduced me to Battlefront's Flames of War and Team Yankee wargames, but the good friend let slip that TY was PERFECT for 6mm scale, to the point where even the main author of it had opined in public that he wished they could have utilized that scale instead of 15mm. And I have been trying to play TY in 6mm ever since, literally for a little over four years now. Oh, we got some games in last year before COVID came crashing down on us, but it was like a game and a half. Plus, I had multiple people express their desire in joining in, but never did anything about it. I decided it was time to be the catalyst in the mix, so after finding yet another person interested who also happened to have a smattering of 6mm models already in their possession, I declared that I was going to host an escalation league.

An escalation league, for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, is in your tabletop wargames of choice, you start with a low point total, give your players time to gather, build and paint that total's worth of miniatures, and then you go up a set increment, rinse, repeat. All while playing as many games inside the league as you can stomach. In my league, we are starting at 50 points, and increasing that by 25 every 4 weeks or so. Fifty points in TY is a good starting point - you get a good mix of units but you just can not squeeze everything into an army list. As a league implies a competition, we are also tracking overall victory points, average victory points per game played, and participation points. Those last are points awarded for showing up, bringing painted armies, bringing all your gear (tokens, smoke markers, artillery templates, etc), and bringing finished terrain. As we are currently playing at my domicile until we can get a local game store to rent us a table again (thank you, Global Pandemic! /end sarcasm), I am not cheating and counting my own participation points. Well, not so much cheating as enjoying an unfair advantage over everyone else. 

Onto my lists, and yes, I am building multiple forces because I already have a sizeable number of minis. At 50 points, I am running two lists in both the Americans and the East Germans. When I first got into 6mm TY, I had bought up a bunch of GHQ minis from the 1st edition TY army books, so I am trying to use those minis instead of going straight to the latest and greatest (ie: T80 and BMP-3 Soviets, and M1A1 and Bradley Americans). In all 4 of these lists I tried to include decent tank options (not high end and very point heavy, but also not low end and be too "horde-y"), at least some infantry in the tank heavy lists for flexibility and objective sitting, as well as some artillery and attendant observer, and some gun AA. I do not expect much in the way of fixed wing aircraft at this low of a point total, but there might be some helos, and gun AA is also pretty effective against APCs/IFVs and infantry.

For the Americans, I have built up an Army M60 Patton Armored Combat team, as even basic M1 Abrams are too point heavy and would restrict my numbers too much - a single tank HQ (4pts), 3 platoons with 2 M60s apiece (8pts per - I am experimenting with multiple minimum unit formations, see how this works for me), and a 3 M113 mech platoon (2 M47 Dragon teams, 3 M249 SAW teams) plus an extra M47 Dragon team (4pts for the platoon, 1pt for the extra team). The other formation is a M113 Mech Combat team - mandatory HQ (M113 and M16 rifle team, 1pt), a 4 M113 mech platoon (3 M47s and 4 M249s, 6pts), 2 M113 mech platoons w/extra M47s (5pts per), and a 4 tank M60 Patton tank platoon (16pts). Each of those also has 3 M106 Heavy Mortars (3pts) and 2 M901 ITVs TOW-1 (3pts) integral to the formation, and 3 M109 artillery (7pts), 2 M163 VADS (3pts), and a M113 FIST (1pt) from Divisional support.

I went with East Germans instead of USSR proper as I had a bunch of T72s and BMP-1s, and while I did not want to go straight T55 horde, I do appreciate the East Germans' lower point cost on both of those units. The first formation is the T72M Panzer Battaillon - mandatory HQ (3pts), 2 4 tank Panzer Kompanies (11pts per), a 3 tank Kompanie (7pts), and a 4 BMP-1 Mot-Schutzen Kompanie (3 RPG-7 teams and 4 MPi-KM teams, 6pts) plus an AGS-17 GL and extra BMP-1 (1pt). The other formation is the BMP-1 Mot-Schutzen Battaillon - mandatory HQ (BMP-1 and a MPi-KM rifle team, 1pt), 3 BMP-1 Kompanies w/4 BMP-1s apiece (3 RPG-7s, 4 MPi-KMs, 6pts per), plus one extra AGS-17 GL team and BMP-1 (1pt). Then, like the Americans, I have a 4 track ZSU-23-4 Shilka Flak Zug (4pts) and a 3 tube 2S1 Gvozdika (Carnation) Artillerie Batterie (6pts) integral to each formation, plus a BMP-1 OP (1pt) from Divisional support.

With the Americans, having your artillery and AA in Divisional support instead of integral to the formation means you can play them a lot further forward - if you lose them, they don't count towards formation morale. But then, with the East Germans, because they are integral to the units, they can be held back and help with formation morale. I'm not sure which play style I prefer, but it's going to be interesting to find out.

So what did all of this cost? I am not talking about the rulebooks, tokens, dice, measuring devices, etc, just the models themselves. From GHQ, which is the most expensive of the 6mm scale manufacturers, though we in the US do save on not having to pay import/export taxes and overseas shipping, the American forces were as follows:
2 packs of M60A3s
2 packs of M113A1s
1 pack of M160A1s
1 pack of M901s
1 pack of M109s
1 pack of M163 VADS
And for the infantry, 1 pack each of the Modern US Heavy Weapons, Modern US Individual Infantrymen, and to get some M72 LAW figures, 'Nam Era US Heavy Weapons.
At basically $12 per pack ($11.95 per), that's $108 for the Americans, but you are getting 3 extra M60s, 3 extra M106s, 3 extra M901s, 2 extra M109s (but the short barrel version that the Brits and West Germans use), 4 extra M163s, and a handful of extra infantry bits that I'm not going to list here. Considering just the M901s and M163s will run you $40 from Battlefront in 15mm, $108 for the whole double list force plus extras does not sound so bad.

For the East Germans, I picked up:
3 packs of T72s
3 packs of BMP-1s
1 pack of ZSU-23-4 Shilkas
1 pack of 2S1 Carnations
And for infantry, 2 packs of Modern Russian Infantry and 1 pack of Modern Russian Heavy Weapons - yeah, they're not specifically East Germans, but they're close enough to them and the Soviets of the mid-80s that at this scale it's not really noticeable, and you can use them between the Soviets, East Germans, Poles, and Czechs.
Again, 9 packs at $12 per for a total of $108. But in 15mm scale you will still feel the wallet pinch of the horde army even as less-horde-ish as my East German lists are, as you will need 3 packs of Battlefront T-72s at $50 apiece just to start. 

For the future, at least for the first "escalation" of 25 points, my plans are pretty much to add more of the same, plus air units - A10s and Hueys with airborne troops for the Americans, SU-25s and Hinds for the East Germans. I will, at some point, sub in M1 Abrams for the M60 Pattons, as well as add some missile AA vehicles, but until I am ready to put in a new formation entirely, I will be staying with the vehicles and units I have now.

Lessons Learned 25

The great plague smothering the land was easing its grip, a cure had finally been developed, and our brave adventurers could once again delve the depths of dungeons that did not allow for the mandated six feet of separation. Yes, my weekly D&D 5e group is finally playing again. Mostly in person, even. We had tried, at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak here in the States, to continue our campaign over Roll20 and Discord, but they just did not work for us. I am by no means disparaging those two applications, in fact, I encourage any DM and party who is looking to game online to use them, it is that my party could not make them work. Well, one of my players who is technologically and financially challenged could not make it work (you can fix or overcome most technology-related problems by throwing more money at it), and as I was not going to run the campaign without him, we decided to do something else. That something else was letting one of the other players run a short campaign online for those who could make Roll20 and Discord work. It was entertaining but short, and per what Seth Skorkowsky said, when a player offers to DM you, their DM, you let them do it. 

But here we are, most of the group was already constantly in contact with the public due to our jobs anyway, the incidence rate is fairly low due to (lack of) population density in the area, and except for one player who has some health concerns and was isolating even harder than everyone else (and another who is having marital issues) who joined us online via an old cellphone and Discord video chat, we are now gaming in person once again. Except when players miss games and we have to cancel. Or they forget to check with their human resources department and their new scheduled days off are not on the days they thought they were going to be. Or when my own work schedule drastically changes the day before the game due to coworker incompetence and I have to cancel. Or one player skips sleeping for a few days to play a videogame and has to cancel. 

Which brings me to the Lesson mentioned in the title of this post - you will never find a group of your friends who all have the exact same schedule or who will not have life interrupt from time to time. I have never, NEVER, played or DM'd in any group where attendance was 100%. If you have - and games that last exactly one session do not count - then I and every other grognard out there envies you, that is the rarest of the rare. Not that I am berating my or any other players (or DMs, we are merely human too) out there, as you have to admit that as fun as it is we are still just playing a game and more important things exist in our lives. Even my employer, who pays me so I can afford my mortgage and car payment, does not get me 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year - I call in sick and take vacations and holidays just like everyone else does. The players are going to miss, the DM is not going to be prepared for every session - shit happens! 

The lesson, if you have not figured it out, is that you need a plan for players who miss. Or if you as the DM misses. Because chances are, from session to session, someone is not going to make it to the game. It will most generally not be the same player/DM (unless they are done playing and cannot quite bring themselves to admit it to the group), which is a relief and makes the infrequent absentees bearable (most of the players and DMs out there) but makes the habitual ones grind your teeth in frustration. What then, dear reader, should one do? As hinted at by my slips of vulgarity, I spent many years in the United States Army, and they have a saying you, as a DM, should take to heart - Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome. What was your first plan? Everyone's plan changes upon meeting the enemy (or getting punched in the teeth, however you prefer that saying), and you need a backup plan, as well as an alternate to the backup, and enough gumption to throw all of the above out on its ear and just plain wing it when required. Oh yeah, and enough talent to not only follow the new plan, but make it work.

What has worked for me is stubbornness - my current D&D group WILL make it to level 20 or their PCs will die trying. And I have outright replaced 2 of the starting players in the group, welcomed one of those back when he replaced his own replacement, tried out 3 other players that just did not mesh with the rest of the group, and added 3 more players that appear to be doing well. Plus did everything I could to keep the group together during a global pandemic that, admittedly, did not get to the level of "zombie apocalypse", darn the luck. One of the biggest things I have done from the beginning is that the players leave their character sheets at my place (where we hold our sessions), and if they cannot make a session, they have to "adult" up and let me know ahead of time who is playing their character. And if their PC dies while they are not present, it still counts. Scheduling is the other big hurdle, and sometimes all you can do is have everyone, including yourself as DM, list out when they are free to play a session. Once you have the list, sometimes the only option you have is what fits best into the most participants' schedules, and you have to be enough of an adult and look at your friend, even if they are your favorite player, and tell them it just is not going to work for this campaign, hopefully they will be available in the future. The game must go on, and when it cannot continue in its current form, sometimes the only option is to start fresh, keep only the players that really show they want to be there, maybe try a new campaign setting, or even a new game entirely, and try again. You never know, you could end up running your game for just one session before restarting from scratch (got a movie quote about that, more in a moment) or you could run it for the next 40 years. The movie quote, by the way, is about bands, and I cannot seem to find the scene by itself, but it is very appropriate to RPG groups. The scene comes from That Thing You Do, the one starting and directed by Tom Hanks from the '90s about a band of young gentlemen in the late '50s/early '60sand their hit rock song. Our protagonist, the drummer of the group, finds himself talking to his hero, a jazz pianist, who has been in the music industry for a very long time. The drummer complains that his band is breaking up, but they have this hit record and song, to which the wise veteran replies, "some bands I've been in, one album is too many". Well, for some of your groups out there, one game session may be one game session too many, and they immediately dissolve. Hell, I myself have tried to get groups together that dissolved before they got through character creation and Session Zero! But you will not know for sure until you have at least tried. Do not beat yourself up if it does not work, bit you have to at least try.

Not so much a lesson, but some other things I wish to share. Just as we were gearing up to play in-person again, WotC released Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (TCoE). My impression of it so far is that it suffers the same issue as Xanathar's Guide to Everything (XGtE) - if it really covers "everything", why would we need any other books? But here we have TWO tomes with similar names claiming "everything"? The goofy name aside, I do like most of TCoE, and am actively using several items from it - sidekicks and group patrons. To be honest, when I started my current campaign almost 3 years ago, I also invented (or thought I had) group patrons. The wife and I several more years before starting the campaign had watched the BBC's recent reinvention of The Musketeers. When we watched it, I was struck that this certain unit in the military answered directly to their ruler, got missions and support from the government, and in return said government got to restrain them from being too excessive. The perfect thing to fight murder-hoboism, I thought. I talked about this, briefly, nearly a year ago when the Eberron campaign setting book came out, the first appearance of patrons to D&D 5e, officially. It took me a while, but recently I realized that what I had done in my own game was give my players a patron. Here I was, thinking at how clever I had been, but the folks at WotC are keeping up with all of us out here in TV Land. 

Sidekicks have also been of great use. Long before TCoE came out, my party went a little "awaken" crazy, and ended up with a badger bartender (who I ruled got a little extra juice in the awakening and also got a little anthropomorphized in the process, but as the badger is not joining the party on the adventures, I deemed it was fine for story purposes), the cleric's giant boar mount, and a dire wolf the ranger insisted on saving after the party almost killed it (did kill 13 of its packmates and its former master... how long does the "charm" portion of the awaken spell last again? 30 days? that should be fine). The party is already 11th level, so while the rules for sidekicks normally only allow creatures/NPCs up to 1/2 CR, I allowed the "big pig" and the wolf to be made sidekicks, just reduced their hit dice pool to match what would normally be given to a 1/2 CR sidekick at level 11, but left everything else alone. Yeah, these two have more special abilities than your average 1/2 CR creature, but at this level, it is not going to make much difference. For the boar, I went with the "warrior" sidekick, as our cleric is not one to shy away from melee combat and also the boar is very not-stealthy, having her own barding. For the wolf, even though it is a "large" creature (a wolf roughly the size of a horse), I decided to go just a bit sideways and went with the "expert" sidekick. Yes, the "expert" is more like a rogue, but it is also more like a ranger, with the tracking and stealth, and the pack tactics special ability of the dire wolf interlocks well with the coordinated strike feature of the "expert". The party has not had much time with their new sidekicks, but I can already tell they are looking forward to getting good use out of the pair. Check out both sidekicks and group patrons in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, I know my party is enjoying both of them.

How to Properly Do a D&D Movie/Show

They appear to be making yet another D&D movie, and I think they are going to make a hash of it. Again. Let us be honest - D&D has done well as a RPG (duh), many novelizations and comic books (but not all of them), but has been laughable at best in theaters and well, the best cartoon they did last aired in 1985. I have said in the past that WotC, instead of trying to make their own D&D movie, would be better served to buy the rights to whatever generic or even lightly branded medieval fantasy movie that is about to come out, and just change the names of places and people to fit any of the many D&D campaign settings. They could have done it with the 2018 version of Robin Hood. It did not seem to have much in common with the standard Robin Hood mythos, aside from some of the names. It also seemed to be full of magic and anachronistic technology and fashion that made no sense for a Robin Hood retelling, so it is not too big of a stretch to see that WotC could alter the script to names from one of their many campaign settings, slap some Spock rubber ears on a few of the actors to make "elves", some beards on short actors for "dwarves", and rename it to, "D&D, the Bandit's Journey", or something vaguely cool like that. It would not do any worse than the actual movie did ($100 million budget, and only $86 million worldwide gross? not a real barn burner, was it?) and if the WotC writers tightened up the plot at the same time they were changing names in the script, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the movie would have actually been successful and made money. I would say it does not appear they are doing any of that, but we know so little about what the new movie contains that I cannot really say much about it. Oh, Chris Pine is reported to be the lead actor, and I have enjoyed his work elsewhere, so it has that going for it.

What? You know I am right, if the setting is medieval fantasy, change some of the names and it is totally a D&D movie. I see that look on your face, you do not believe me, but I, ahem, Mr Matt Colville DM extraordinaire shall prove you wrong.

Yes, if you paid attention, that was Matt describing the most popular geeky movie franchise of the late '90s/early '00s, Lord of the Rings, as a D&D campaign. Also to explain the difference between different styles of D&D games. As long as the story is good, the plot vaguely makes sense, and the characters have a chance to exhibit growth, then it does not matter which exact story you tell. Yes, Tolkien's works pre-date D&D, even influence it heavily enough that the Tolkien estate sued TSR back in the day, but you have to admit that The Lord of the Rings trilogy would have worked just as well with different names for the characters and places. So it makes for a crappy D&D campaign, but still it was more entertaining to watch than The Hobbit trilogy. No, I am not going to link those two, if you have not seen either or do not know what I am talking about, stop reading this, go watch the movies, read the books, and then you can come back. You must be at least this nerdy to participate in this blog.

I would say that the folks behind the upcoming D&D movie are doing any of that, but as I do not actually know what they are doing or even planning on doing, I am not going to say that. Instead I am going to tell you what I would do if I were in charge, as if I had any chance of the folks at WotC listen to any of my advice. Better chance of winning the lottery. Which reminds me I need want to buy some lottery tickets, but no, Powerball and Mega Millions are not high enough as I type this. Anyway, this is what I would do for a D&D movie. First, I would make it a series on one of the streaming platforms. Movies are too constricted, too bland and safe, especially after the COVID (well, eventually after we will be able to go back to theaters to watch them), so I would do a series for the long term value and I would go streaming because that is where you folks, my people, my fellow nerds and geeks, where we watch our entertainment these days. Second, if we are going to go so far as to brand this thing D&D, instead of just making another generic medieval fantasy show, let us really show folks what D&D is all about - you show the players and DM playing the game and then every so often flip over to the action in the game so it is not just another live play show. Wait, what? Yes, you have two complete casts, one that is playing the story like it was an actual game of D&D, complete with jokes and table banter, and another, different cast in full costumes and CGI effects and fancy set pieces, the works, acting out the story the first cast is playing in their game. Oh, and the first cast is doing voice-over for everything the second cast is saying. 

Let me explain this a bit further - the first episode starts out in media res, our action cast in their medieval fantasy finery battling some level monsters (goblins or kobolds, whatever you would normally encounter at level 1 or 2), but the voices do not seem to match up with the characters, and maybe even one or more of the characters is being voiced by the opposite gender. The characters defeat the whatevers and a new voice suddenly starts describing what appears before the characters, and then a whip cut over to a bunch of geeks (the voices we heard coming out of the fantasy hero mouths just a moment ago) gathered around a table, playing D&D. The new voice from the voice over is the, duh, DM. Of course, someone tells a joke at the dramatic moment, which is the reason for the whip cut, the table breaks up laughing and now the audience is pulled into the fun. We watch the players for a bit, the DM calms everyone down, and we flip back to the live action group acting out the new scene. This way you have both halves of what you want from a D&D movie - the medieval fantasy schlock with cool fight scenes and special effects, the story and character development you have always wanted from one of these but never really got, and you also get to see what playing the game with your friends is like.

I just realized that what I described was Harmonquest, Dan Harmon's animated, D&D-as-therapy show that is hilarious and popular with "the youths". For the most part my idea is very similar, but there are some key differences. The biggest is that the cast stays the same, and this will not be played out in front of a live studio audience, sitcom style. Other differences lie in that my D&D show will be scripted, live action for the adventure scenes, and while still containing humor (you have to have a good laugh around the table to have a good D&D game) it will be a much more serious tone overall. 

Now for casting - I think WotC needs to cast big name voice actors like John DiMaggio and Kari Wahlgren who are known for doing voice acting but not known for doing live performance acting. Like the cast of Critical Role before they did Critical Role. Why not just cast them? Because you want to use the good ideas from that show, but not merely recreate it (and they are already doing a Critical Role cartoon that hot Kickstarted for millions of dollars). So you get voice actors who are recognizable by their voices but not their faces, and they are your DM and players of the show. For the "action" cast, you hire all those stunt women and men, like Zoë Bell, who rarely act as themselves but are in great shape and can do all the fight choreography. I like this setup because you still have the names that the very interested fans will recognize, and since this will be a series on streaming, the production team can save themselves some money, as the name draw just is not necessary. Though I did recently see the new Jumanji movies, and it was kind of neat to hear the action cast (Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, etc) mimic the real world cast (the kids, Danny DeVito, etc). But then you have to pay for double the cast, as they found out between the 2 newest Jumanji movies - you have to have recognizable names and voices to mimic with your "action" cast, otherwise it just does not land as well as you hoped it would. 

Which brings us, of course, to the story, and the biggest question all of the previous D&D-based movies have SPECTACULARLY failed on - what exactly is the story of D&D? The answer, of course, is that there is not one singular story for D&D, there never has been, and there never will be. I am not the only one who believes this to be true, and Jerry Holkins is as big a D&D nerd as you can find, so that article is not about how much he hates D&D. Well, that is all then, guess we are done. What? No? Fine. As you well know, everyone thinks of something different when they hear the term Dungeons & Dragons, usually their favorite gaming party during their most epic of adventure arcs or campaigns. And yes, I intended to emphasize that the party is more important than the plot of the campaign, because admit it, in your memories, your friends (ie: the party) ARE more important. Which is why I want to have a cast specifically made to show the DM and the party so we can tell that story and relate to the non-fans how special the relationship around a TTRPG usually is for those involved. Also why I want to script the whole show, as you can often get good table chemistry from any bunch of nerds playing D&D, but from non-players who are voicing lines for the "action" cast, well, it is far easier to feed them the lines so they sound like they are veteran players, have great table chemistry, and easier to match lip flaps with the "action" cast if you are not improvising all your lines at the same time. Then what story do I give to the "action" cast? More accurately, which classic D&D campaign would I have the party play and the action cast act out? Because that is what you need for the action cast - a classic D&D campaign that is recognizable to the fans but still gives a little of everything found in the game to those who do not know (combat, exploration, negotiation, stealth, high adventure, the works). There are plenty to choose from - Against the Giants, Keep on the Borderlands, The Spider Queen - and even plenty that were created for or from novels - any of the Drizz't books or the entirety of the sprawling Dragonlance novels spring immediately to mind. However, the one I have in mind is not as popular in the current player zeitgeist, but I think that would enhance it for the show - the grognards who remember it would be stoked to see it, the younger players would enjoy learning about it from the show, and it has plenty of dungeon crawling and political intrigue. I am talking about the original adventure path, The Shackled City. 

First, a little explanation of what an adventure path is and where they originated from. Near the end of the 3.5 edition of D&D, WotC got a little tired of doing their Dragon and Dungeon magazines (actually, I think it was more towards the end of 3rd edition and the transition to 3.5, but the timing is not important) and one of their biggest users of the Open Gaming License (OGL), Paizo Publishing, offered to take over those magazines for WotC. And they did a fantastic job with them, handling them like champs for many years. Eventually WotC took the magazines back from Paizo (and then killed the magazines, of course) right around the time they released 4th edition. Paizo, having already made plenty of their own products for 3rd/3.5 decided to double their bet and tweaked what they already had published to make their own medieval fantasy RPG, Pathfinder. Which is similar enough to 3rd/3.5 that most players consider Pathfinder (at least 1st edition Pathfinder, but that's a different story) to be D&D version 3.75. Before all of that, though, while they were still doing Dungeon magazine, they came up with the idea of the adventure path - it is not a small series of adventures, but a large one, set to tell a longer story and let your players take their characters from level 1 all the way up to 20. Paizo got so good at adventure paths that they became the main selling point (at least in my mind) of Pathfinder. And Shackled City was the first one. 

There are some caveats. The biggest is that Shackled City appears to be not the greatest, story-wise, as it is far more focused on the dungeon crawling and the lore surrounding the plot is not shared well with the players. I have never played it, so I cannot give you my opinion of it, but I do not see this as a huge problem. Even though it was written by the Paizo folks, the campaign still belongs to WotC as their intellectual property, so they can use whatever bits of it they want and change the rest to tell a more interesting story. In fact, as WotC has already transformed many classic adventures to the new(ish) 5e rules, they could improve the adventure path and release it alongside the show. That is called "synergy", right there. You should also remember that the main draw of this D&D series is not the action scenes, but the interaction of the party members, so whatever adventure they are following is really the sideshow next to the main attraction.

There you have it folks, my grandiose, self-indulgent plan for how I would do a D&D movie/streaming series. Now to wait for the royalty checks to come pouring in. Any second now.

One last thing before you go, if you are fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (and RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic), as well as a fan of Red Letter Media, you should check out RLM's commentary track for the original D&D movie. It is really more of a director's commentary style of track rather than the classic MST3K style, but still very fun.