Battle of Messines Village

I don’t particuarly like Flames of War – or specifically, the WWII variant. I’ve played it before – my interest in the game goes back to buying the v1 Rulebook whilst I was in university – but I’ve kinda lost interest over the years. No idea exactly why, but I think its partially that it got too bloated over the editions. But my interest in the game did help spark my interest in Millitary History. Without Flames of War, I would have never looked up several of the YouTube channels that I regularly watch now.

But the spin-offs to FoW, now those are interesting. Team Yankee is one I’m kinda OK with (see one of my other projects), and Fate of a Nation is one I’ve love to get into, but the lack of opponents in NZ is an issue. But the Great War? I remember picking up the original booklet along with a copy of Wargaming Illustrated, and it caught my attention immediately. Before that, I was one who had a very limited image of WW1, viewing it as a case of static trench warfare, mud, blood and guts. But looking it up after picking up the rules opened my eyes a bit. Even if it did teach me that, during the war, France lost one man dead for every minute the war dragged on…

Luckily, the Bunker in Auckland had a copy of the Great War rulebook, as well as starter sets for each of the factions. So it wasn’t too much of a hassle to pick them all up to eventually get into the game.

But then it occurred to me – there’s probably a lack of opponents here too. “Well, no matter. I can do this a fun little side project, maybe breaking it out every so often for those who are interested…hang on, why not do something for Armistice Day? Probably not the best way to remember, but it is something a gamer can do, right?

So, what should be the first game I aim for? I’d be doing up both sides, but if I work it out ahead of time, it should cut my work down a bit. Still, I’d also need a scenario that I could get people interested in, and that would mean a battle that New Zealanders fought in, since I’m living in New Zealand.

Over time, I’ve written up a bunch of army lists for various historical battles, based on where they were, who fought at them, and a general idea of what the battle entailed. The list currently includes:

• Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneaux
• Battle of Amiens
• Battle of St Quentin Canal
• Battle of Balleau Woods
• Battle of Hamel
• Battle of Soissons
• Battle of LaMalmaison

(By the way, if anyone has a good idea for a historical scenario I could cover, please leave the suggestion in the comments).

But reading through the list of battles that the New Zealand Division participated in, I came across one that was an excellent choice: The Battle of Messines. Not only is it a major battle in the war, but it was the first battle to see the deployment of the Mk IV tank. This got me interested quickly, as it meant I could put several aspects of the game into one scenario, making it interesting for my participants overall.

So, how should I construct the forces? Well, investigations showed that the section of the line I should be interested in had the New Zealand Division vs elements of 7th German Division and 1st Guard Reserve Division, attacking directly towards Messines itself. Given that it was an attack towards entrenchments would suggest a Big Push scenario, but this suited me fine.

The attackers were a fairly straight forward army to put together – a Rifle Company with armoured support. The Defenders were a bit more difficult, as whilst I was thinking a Siegfriedstellung, this was not on the Siegfried line, so it would be more appropriate for an Infanteriekompanie on the line. Additionally, the literature describes Stosstruppen as the immediate reserves to the front line – but the Stosskompanie organisation doesn’t really strike me as a good counter-attack force. But there are the Jagers, which are elite troops, so that formed a decent reserve. I’d also need to include some decent guns to counter the tanks, and I figured that artillery guns were probably more appropriate than AT guns, since both the T-Gewehr and TaK weren’t introduced until 1918.

The final list I came up with was thus:

Attack on Messines Village, Battle of Messines
The Big Push

II ANZAC Corps (New Zealand Division) – Attackers

ANZAC Rifle Company

Company HQ – Webley Pistols = 2 pts
Rifle Platoon = 15 pts
Rifle Platoon = 15 pts
Rifle Platoon = 15 pts
Rifle Platoon = 15 pts
MG Platooon – 3 x MG = 14 pts
Stokes Mortar = 6 pts
Stokes Mortar = 6 pts
Green Male Mk IV Tank = 17 pts (Support)
Green Male Mk IV Tank = 17 pts (Support)

7th German Division and 1st Guard Reserve Division – Defenders

Infanteriekompanie

Kompanie HQ – Mauser Pistols = 2 pts
Infanterie Platoon – M1917 team = 11 pts
Infanterie Platoon – M1917 team = 11 pts
MG Platoon – 3 x MG = 14 pts
MG Platoon – 3 x MG = 14 pts
Minenwerfer = 9 pts
Minenwerfer = 9 pts
Sniper = 4 pts (Support)
+6 Barbed Wire

Reserves
Jager Platoon – Flamethrower team, MP18 team, M1917 team = 25 pts (Support)
7.7cm Field Gun = 9 pts (Support)
7.7cm Field Gun = 9 pts (Support)
Werfer Section – 2 x Gratenwerfer = 6 pts

Unfortunately, the points limits for front-line troops meant that the werfers had to be in reserve, but it kinda worked as it seemed like the Jagers were bringing their own mortars into the counter-attack. Also, the two german MG platoons are probably going to be swapped for MG pillboxes, which would give the tanks somthing to blow up.

Ok – sorted. Now to get the painting underway…

Geez, project #5, and the other four are all on-hold. And this is in between working on DBx stuff, six variants of SAGA, Billion Suns…I’m looking more and more like the wargaming magpie I don’t particularly like…