CoC - Too Fat Lardies

[Dave C]

On Friday night Richard Clarke of the Too Fat Lardies came to our club (Sudbury & District Wargames Club) and put on a demonstration game of Chain of Command. This new platoon level rule set is expected to be published later this summer - or winter if you're in the southern hemisphere!

The scenario was a German attack on a British held village in France. Firstly, the game was great fun and the impression gained was that the rules are simple and easy to learn. That said, each army has some 'national characteristics' built in that reflect their training and tactical approaches to platoon level fighting. Moreover, the 'patrol phase' that starts the game can make for some interesting tactical play influencing how squads can be deployed on the table.

I'm no rules lawyer nor do I have any great analytical skills in comparing rule sets. But what I can say is that we had a cracking good game that was entertaining while also testing for the tactical grey matter!

If this seems like it could be your 'thing' then check out the Lard Island blog as well as their videos on YouTube. There's even an AAR of game fought on featureless terrain, suggesting CoC would be good for the Western Desert...

http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/

Dave C
Suffolk

 

[cstoesen]

I am completely jealous.  Would love to have Rich host a game here.  I guess a plane ticket to Atlanta is a little more than the trip to you. 

[loki77]

Damn you Dave, you beat me to it.

I concur with what Dave has said, he really does not have ANY analyticall skills whatsoever. 

Richard put on a great game with good terrain and miniatures.
The ruleset was simple but fun and needed a surprisingly small area. Looking forward to this, another great job by TFL.

Sean M

[steharan]

I'm quite jealous, although our club would probably cook and eat the lardies as we're all hicks from the Yorkshire Pennines 

CoC is looking more and more like the 28mm platoon level WW2 game that I'd hoped Bolt Action would be. Not to say that there's anything wrong with Bolt Action its just that its starting to feel like WW240K.

I'll be watching this one closely!

[Nick2729]

I would have to agree entirely that you lack any analytical skills Dave!  However, that didn't stop you rolling ridiculously good dice on Friday. Not that I'm bitter 

CoC is a really great game and following Rich's demo this will be the WW2 platoon game of choice for me. The mechanics are simple yet elegant, emphasise command & control, reflect tactical differences of protagonists and allow real world tactics. But far from a dry simulation it is still a great fun game with bags of tension and excitement.

Steharan - Funnily enough CoC was almost Bolt Action. Warlord actually approached Rich Clarke to write it initially but after some discussion he declined. Each to your own but I would agree that the 40K pedigree of the author shows through a bit too much in BA - ceratinly for my own liking - that and I can't get my head around having a Nebelwerfer as an on table weapon in a platoon sized game!