Objectives, Replen Points and Line of Communication Markers for Chain of Command

Chain of Command v2 introduces a couple of new mechanics that need marking on the table - the Replen Point and Mission Objectives. So, it goes without saying, my mind immediately started ticking over, thinking about how I might want to represent these. Aside from the fact that I just enjoy making stuff, I see them bringing a strong narrative element to the table. What more excuse did I need?

Replen Points, once placed, remain in that location. They can supply the first unit that calls for them immediately, plus they can also supply another two types of ammunition to other units. In the meantime they run the risk of capture if contacted by the enemy. As a result, their position needs to be recorded. It just calls out for suitably themed markers. Once again, it was a chance to sift through the spares box and give unused figures a new lease of life.

I had in mind something not dissimilar to the way many people theme their jump-off-points. To differentiate them, I used a small square shape rather than the 40mm rounds I use for my jump-off-points. The figures and ammo boxes all came from the spares box. In the case of the Germans this is a figure from the Plastic Soldier Company heavy weapons set, for the British it is an AB Figure carrying 2" mortar rounds.  

The American figures below are both from Wartime Miniatures (now Simon's Soldiers) and are part of a set of supply figures. I had used them for a jump-off-point originally, but decided they're better suited to this sort of marker.

The US 60mm mortar has a Replen Point automatically assigned to it, in effect giving it an initial six rounds of ammunition (assuming it doesn't move away from the Replen Point before needing to replenish). I had a spare figure from an M1 81mm mortar set and, although he's equipped with ammo for that mortar, I felt he would come close enough to what I needed. Given this sees the 60mm mortar with more ammo than most similar support weapons I thought it might be easier to keep track of ammo use by including a small mini-dice on the base. 

I gave the die a repaint to match the colours on the mortar rounds. Hopefully that make it a little more discrete, while keeping it easy to see.

When it comes to Misson Objective markers there's a lot of scope and much depends on the situation you are gaming. The objective is usually on a key piece of terrain, like a crossroads or a bridge. You could easily use a wrecked vehicle or something similar.

Another option could be a supply dump of some sort.

The only issue that needed a bit of thought was how best to deal with confined spaces, particularly inside buildings. Chances are the defender will want to garrison this key terrain, so I needed a marker that wouldn't demand a lot of space. The idea that sprang to mind was a map, the sort of map the attacking commander may well have consulted when setting objectives for the platoon. 

There are several web sites with 1:50000 period maps, particularly of Normandy.  I found these below showing the area around Caen and thought they would be perfect. I reduced them in size, before printing and then mounting them on squares of MDF.

I went with two different sizes to give me flexibility with placement. I think these might be a good solution when space is at a premium. They achieve one of my key aims of not taking up too much space, there's no reason why figures cannot be placed directly on top of them, if need be.

While not a specific feature of the Chain of Command v2 rules, the CoC Far East Handbook includes Line of Communication markers, which serve as potential objectives for attackers in that theatre. I covered these in an earlier post, but thought it worth including them here again given their link to the new objective marker rules in CoC v2. 

While playing the Driving Charge campaign set in Malaya, we represented the British Line of Communication marker with a model of a truck. 

That worked well enough, but I thought it could benefit from a few figures to add more life and so I repurposed a few AB Figures desert tank crews.

Given that normally the LoC marker is placed on a road, it made sense to base the figures to match.

Generally, the Line of Communications markers are more a feature of the early part of the war, to reflect the way the heavily mechanised allied forces were so dependent on roads. However, that changes as the war progresses and the allies shift to the offensive. That’s when the need for Japanese LoC markers arise. 

The first one I created featured a team of pack horses. These are a blast from the past for me, as they are figures from the old Airfix Jungle Outpost set. I thought they might also come in handy as a target for Chindit raids on Japanese communications. While the poses of both horses and soldiers is repetitive, I think they make for quite an atmospheric group.

I built a Hasegawa model of an Isuzu TX40 fuel truck for use as scatter terrain, or another objective for Chindit raids, but it will also work well as a LoC marker. The addition of a figure adds more to the narrative and brings the setting to life. This figure comes from the Orion Japanese tank crew set.

Together with my recent attempts to created new game markers I've enjoyed putting these together. No doubt a few will make an appearance in our ongoing Scottish Corridor campaign.

Game Markers for Chain of Command

The publication of Chain of Command v2 inspired me to tackle a project I've been mulling over for a while now. I've been trying to come up with game markers that reduce the amount of clutter and blend in more with the figures and table. With that in mind, I've created a few alternatives to the markers I use currently.

In recent years, I've been using the set pictured below. They are certainly functional and I've done my best to blend them into the table (more about how I did that in this post). 

They are made from 3mm thick MDF, which makes them quite chunky and, despite using them for several years, I still find them a little obtrusive. I think it doesn't help that most are larger than they need to be to serve their purpose. That's certainly accentuated when playing in a smaller scale, like 20mm.

That said, the Overwatch marker does serve a very specific purpose, as it defines the 90 degree firing arc.

What became apparent quite quickly was that, because each has a unique shape, we didn't need to read the words on the marker to know what they represented. That then begs the obvious question, why did we need words on them at all? Perhaps I can blend these into the table even more by relying on shape alone? I then took it a step further. 

I have a lot of spare figures amassed from various projects. Many are from the Plastic Soldier Company, either left over when I replaced them with metal AB Figures, or surplus to requirements from one of their gun or tank sets. That's given me a lot of excess tank and gun crew figures. Many of the poses include figures pointing, or looking through binoculars, perfect to theme an overwatch marker. 

It remained important that any new overwatch markers continue to define a unit's arc of fire. That would still determine their size and shape. I cut a suitably sized piece from MDF, using a 90 degree angle to indicate the arc of fire. 

It was then just a matter of adding ground material to match my usual basing style. Of course, it's not necessary to put a figure on them, but as I had so many spare it seemed a shame not to do it. These below are British gun crew figures from Plastic Soldier Company sets.

I've produced something very similar with German figures (once again, these are all surplus Plastic Soldier Company figures).

I think these make for a much more visually appealing game marker. They should work in nicely for the game report photos.

Ironically, they are slightly larger than the original overwatch markers. Time may tell if they need trimming down a little. Nonetheless, I think they certainly look the part.

Having addressed infantry overwatch, I thought I could do something similar for vehicles. This was inspired by a blog comment made a few years ago. In short, the writer was saying, why go to all the effort of doing a nice paint job on a Tiger I, only to stick an ugly MDF marker right on top? 

Well, they did have a point. In my defence, I've since broken the habit of sticking these right on top of vehicles and now place them at ground level. 

That's not an ideal solution and, frankly, I don't know why it's taken me this long to address it. As with the infantry overwatch markers, I've wanted to come up with something that blends in more with the vehicles and the table. In this instance, I've gone for a much smaller shape (as it happens, they are just the MDF offcuts from the infantry overwatch markers). Each is painted in the base AFV colours that I use for their respective nationality.

The idea is to place them at ground level, beneath the main gun, to indicate the direction of the arc of fire.

The triangular shape works well, because it can define both a 90 degree arc of fire, or, as is the case with the Sherman's fast turret, one of 180 degrees.

The T34/85 has an average turret speed and the marker works just as well to indicate that arc of fire.

Of course, the Hetzer doesn't have a turret. However, the shape of the vehicle defines the arc and the marker is simply that, something to remind us that the gunner has been placed on overwatch.

I could place these on top of the turret. That's certainly not my preference, nor is it always practical. That said, it does look much better than the previous markers.

Although perhaps a little top heavy in some cases....

Of course, I don't need to put figures on any of these markers and I do intend making some generic ones, although, having said that, I suspect there are enough spare figures in the boxes to give me what I might need for most of the nationalities I collect. Tragic really.

When it came to considering tactical markers, there was no particular reason for any specific size or shape. 

Given a tactical stance represents units finding better cover, I thought the best solution was to mark this with a piece of terrain. These don't even need to be based, but I wanted to ensure they could be distinguished from other pieces of scatter terrain.

They were straightforward enough to make. The logs are twigs from the garden; the bricks are cut from cork floor tiles; the large rocks are pieces of tree bark - all sourced from my terrain 'bits and pieces' box.

These are certainly larger than the markers they are intended to replace, but I don't have an issue with that. They will be used to represent better cover for a section of up to ten or eleven figures, so they need to tell their story visually. 

To mark shock, I've been using micro dice in themed dice frames. For now, I can't think of an easier way to do this that serves its function better. 

Originally, I used 7mm dice on a square base.

Now, I've gone one size smaller with 5mm dice on a round 20mm base. A bit fiddly at times, I must confess, but less intrusive on the table.

That then left me wondering how best to represent pinned and broken markers. Once again, the aim here is to minimise markers and table clutter. Both pinned and broken status come about as results of excess shock. Currently, I add a second marker to indicate that.

In the case of this small group, that makes for more clutter than I really want.

So, I questioned if I really needed to devise new markers for pinned and broken. Could I not combine this into a single marker, one that covered both the level of shock and the status it imposed on the unit? One idea was to create single sabot bases for the shock dice frame markers, one version for pinned and another for broken. Then I could simply put the shock base into the sabot. I've done something just like this to mark my wounded junior leaders.

I think the solution I'm going to try, is to use different coloured dice in the shock markers. This would eliminate the need for any additional marker or sabot base. Currently, I use black mini dice to indicate shock. When a unit becomes pinned or breaks they remain at that status at least until a turn end, so it's not a status that changes back and forth. As a result, changing the colour of the shock dice to indicate a change of status could achieve my aim. I will use grey for pinned and red for broken.

If nothing else, it sees a drastic reduction in the need for markers.

I don't intend changing the way I mark wounded junior leaders. The leader figure is placed in a discrete sabot with a medical kit to indicate their wound. 

A stunned leader is marked in a similar fashion, except the medical satchel has an 'S' painted on it.

The issue I do have, and it's one of my own creation, is that my senior leaders are on more irregular, rectangular bases. It achieves the objective of distinguishing them from junior leaders and other ranks, but the wounded sabot bases don't work. Up until now I've been using a variation of the wounded markers but mounted on a separate 20mm round base.

I've come up with two solutions. If the leader is stunned I will use one of these prone figures as a marker and place it alongside the leader's figure. If he's wounded and loses Orders, I will replace him with a casualty figure, where I have one. Again, the spares box has helped me out here.

As always, the true test will come when playing a game and I'll soon know how practical all of this is compared to the current system. No harm in trying something new and it's always good to give those figures in the spares box a new lease of life.