Welcome to Platoon Forward!

Welcome to the site where the story of the battle is as important as the battle itself. Here we will focus on men thrust into extraordinary situations of life and death. They must lead other men with duty and honor to meet their countries objectives. Some will be blessed with great skill, some will carry great shortcomings. No matter what nation, no matter what war, no matter what theater, they are all called to move their Platoon or Squadron forward!

These are their individual stories as played out using my various campaign rules . Hopefully these stories will entertain and inspire you to use your own troops, airmen and sailors to accomplish your own great heroics.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Never trust the Bey!

Well I am still building up my 1/600 fleet of ships.  I have agreed to have my ships and "Release the Hounds" debut at the Williamsburg Muster on Saturday 7 Feb.  It is a great show so for any of you around stop by to play or just to chat!
I couldn't just paint ships so last weekend played a scenario of my modified Donnybrook.  I didn't roll up any of the forces- just decided what I wanted and played.

Lt Chester Shellbourne received his orders from the Admiral.  " Some unfriendly little chap near Tangiers is trying to intercept shipping and becoming successful.   Take your brig and pay him a visit.  Let him know that the Crown will not tolerate his actions!  And Chester, if I have learned one thing in the past 6 months it is never trust a Bey!"

Forces

Lt Shellbourne  (D12 and Gr III leader)
Lt Sullivan  (D10 and Gr II leader plus 6 elite marines)
Bo'sun "Tip" Brooks (D10 and Gr II leader plus 8 drilled sailors)

Overview of the square just before fighting broke out.  Arabs rush in from the left while rifle toting Turks appear from behind the Mosque.

Close up of the meeting between Lt Shellbourne and Bey MoroTunisgrad.  The Bey is behind the green guard.   Who is the stranger in black?

The turks volley take out two sailors. then the foot Arabs rush the remainder.  Both sides take casualties and Bo'sun Tip is wounded.
Meanwhile the marines dispatch the guards but the Bey slips away

Melee in the square.   The Bey and the Black cloaked man are behind the house.  What are they plotting?

The sailors retreat to the stalls leaving room for the marines to fire.  They do and the Arabs break and run.

Next the Turks and Marines trade fire with the Turks getting the worse.  They retreat behind a house.

Tip goes hunting for Turks with Lt Shellbourne close behind.

The sailors plow into the disorganized Turks and rout them!

During the melee Lt Shellbourne comes face to face with a black cloaked gentleman.  They both fire pistols.  When the smoke clears the black cloacked figure is wounded in the arm while Lt Shellbourne lies mortally wounded. 

Meanwhile on the other side of the house the Bey shows up with mounted horsemen intent on doing harm!
The marines lose three and back up to fire.


Once again their fire is effective and the cavalry flee.  With his forces defeated the Bey also retreat with a plan to lay low.

Tip swings around the house and meets Lt Sullivan.  The Lt decides they must get back to ship before any more forces arrive.


Great game that I declared a British victory as they managed to get some people back to the ship.  I was shocked by the death of Lt Shellbourne.  In my modified wounds table you have to roll a "1" to be killed outright.  That I managed to roll that on a D12 was unfortunately impressive.
I bet the blacked cloaked man and Bey will encounter forces of the crown again!  I can't wait.
For those of you that want to try this the Bey's forces were:
Bey (D10 and Gr II leader)
Black cloaked man (D12 and Gr I leader)
6 Mercenary drilled Turks  led by Sgt (D10 Gr I leader)
8 Raw Arab foot soldiers led by leader ( D8 Gr 0)
Reinforcements after a total of "9" is rolled on a D6.
4 elite cavalry led by D10 Gr I.

Enjoy

Joe






Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Go Big or Go home!

Hope everyone had a great holiday season!!  I actually did traveling to family; something I haven't been able to do for three years.  The new job is actually starting to ramp up; now when I go to work people ask me hard questions.  Before everyone ignored me!

The first news is Grunts Forward is done!  I sent the document to Rich Clark yesterday.  Hopefully he will publish it by summer.  For new readers Grunts Forward is the asymetrical warfare expansion for Platoon Forward.  It includes more in depth character generation, medals, a new NPC table and 6 new scenarios such as "Ft Apache" ( rebel attack on your base) and "One of our planes is missing" ( A race to find the crew of a downed plane).  As usual these are all very solitaire friendly with great replay value.

The second news is I splurged and treated myself.  I tried to run several USN PT boat vrs IJN barges and the pieces were just too small.  I have decided to go up to 1/600 scale for at least my smaller ships.


                                               Go big or Go home!!  1/600 PT boat vrs 1/1200.

I found some old Skytrex ships on e-bay, bought a bunch from PT Dockyard and also purchased 2 1/700 model kit IJN DDs.  I spent more than I wanted to but it has re invigorated me working on my Release the Hounds rules.

That looks cool!!!

Japanese barges I can actually see.  They even have stuff in them!

IJN runs for the shore at 10 kts!

Gotcha!

A heavily damaged boat with a dead skipper runs from a land based 75mm.

Look for some more battle reports with my bigger ships. Bigger is better!

Cheers

Joe