Big Weekend of CoC

So this has been the biggest gaming weekend for a while. Firstly, the nephew was over on Saturday, and so I christened the house with the first game played here. In fact two.

I had forces organised from the last game with Steve at the club, so rather than come up with something new, I took the same Late War British vs Late War Panzer Grenadiers.

The table is too narrow, so I will be making a fold out table top to sit on top to take it to a full 2 x 1.5 metres. Otherwise it was a good giggle. I knew that he was a Panzer nut, so I made sure he had a big cat to play with.

Unfortunately for him, the Firefly took the first shot, and that was it..  one blazing Panther. I suspect that dented his personal morale. It was all downhill for the PzGrenadiers thereafter.

Firefly vs Panther

Stand-up fight

At one stage, I managed to isolate one PzGren squad, and it was a straight stand-up shootout between two British squads. and one German. It only could end up one way.

Anyway - that was so much fun, he insisted on a second game, so we swapped sides, and this time, the Germans got lucky. No photographs I'm afraid, we were having too much fun.

On Sunday, I was up at Kirriemuir again..  and Steve and I had a cracking game, with myself and young James taking my new Early War French out for a run against the Germans. Black Tree Design still haven't come through with my figures, so I am afraid I was proxying my Late War Germans for an Early War 1st Wave German Force.

I used the Hasty Defence scenario from the Blitzkrieg handbook, in which the attacker has to clear two sectors, and exit a unit. Support was 6 for the French +3 for the difference in Platoon strength, and 12 for the Germans.

Unfortunately, as I had to organise both sides, the supports weren't much of a surprise. I gave the French a barbed wire emplacement, a Panhard 178 armoured car, and extra rifle grenades for the VB section. The Germans got a PanzerJager 1, a Stuka Barrage, a fixed Heavy Machine Gun and a red command dice. I'm not sure we played the Stuka attack correctly.

My colleague was very dismissive of the Panhard... but...

Panhard attacks!

Scratch one PzJg1

In all fairness, the Panhard didn't destroy the PzJg, but it did knock out it's main gun (only gun!), and there was then a comedy affair, as Steve realised the only way left to him to deal with the rampant Panhard, was to try and ram it with the Paper Panzer. Unfortunately, his 'charge' fell short, and a shell from the Panhard's 25mm main gun immobilised him for the next phase.  

Spot the Frenchman

With the VB squad set up in the grounds of the burning chateau on their left, and the Panhard ruling the roost on the right, the French hung back, knowing the Germans had to come to them.

What actually hurt Steve in this game was that it seemed every time they suffered a casualty, it was a leader. At one stage I looked over, and (IIRC) the Germans had lost 4 men, two of whom were Junior Leaders. Steve managed to roll an amazing succession of 1's. By the end of the game, they had a Senior Leader wounded twice and three Junior Leaders dead. No luck, and the red dice kept rolling 5s and 6s, which were no use to him at all.

The Stuka barrage set the mansion on fire.. 

Great fun, and yet again, Chain of Command gave a great game. Hopefully Steve will have his GIs done for next month's meeting, and we can try out a new platoon.

In the meantime, I have some 15mm ancients to paint for Warfare in Reading in November, and in between, hopefully, my Early War Germans will arrive, and I can also do my British Airborne. Plenty to keep me busy, and I am also planning to finish up enough terrain, mainly roads, hedges and trees so that I will have enough to do a full table.

A fun weekend. Three great games, and great fun and great opponents.

EW French for CoC in 28mm

I have always fancied doing Early War, when the tanks were less 'big cat', and more 'puny panzer'. The release of the Too Fat Lardies 'Blitzkrieg' book tipped me over the edge; that and a bargain Crusader French Platoon I picked up via Lead Adventure Forum (LAF).

Of course, then I had to add bits and pieces, including some from Warlord, so more to follow, but here's the core platoon plus some supports. I have Early War Germans on order from Black Tree Design, but they still haven't shown up.

Officers

I ended up with a surfeit of French officers, I am considering using these as Jump-Off markers!

Terrain

And I did some minefields and barbed wire emplacements.

Rear View

Medium Mortar crew

Three squads Plus supports

Deadly Hotchkiss 25mm AT

Medium Machine gun and Light Mortar

VB Squad

Squads 1 & 2

Progress Shot

The last one shows how they looked immediately after I brushed on Coat d Arms Brown 'goo'.

Scottish Corridor

No, not the lobby in a closey..  But the'pint-size' campaign from Too Fat Lardies depicting the actions of elements of the 15th Scottish Division in Normandy in June 1944, under counter-attack from Kampfgruppe from both the Leibstandarte and Der Fuhrer Divisions.

So I managed to get a game in on Sunday, and myself and Steve played out the scenario for game 1 in the campaign. Each side had a fresh platoon, with 16 points of support. The Brits took a sniper, a Sherman 75 and a Firefly.

Because I was supplying the troops there weren't any real surprises, and the Germans took a Panther, a medic and a second senior officer. The German troops are graded as 'Regular Elite' so a single 6 on their command dice converts to a 5. This is likely to see them accumulate Chain of Command dice almost twice as fast as the Scots.

Peaceful enough, German troops will be approaching from the right 

A quiet day, somewhere in Normandy, those of you who saw pics of the last game will I hope realise that all the buildings, walls etc have been upgraded. And I have even sourced some of the fabled rubberised horsehair to make my own trees and hedges with...

View from the Scottish end of the table. A jump off point is just visible behind the Chateau.

The patrol phase was fairly unremarkable, but the Scots got slightly the better of it, pushing up towards the buildings.  We actually did it right this time (I think). In previous games, buildings have been a troop magnet, but as we both knew there was going to be high explosive getting flung around, the buildings started to look marginally less attractive.

First deployment

The Scots elected to bring on a single squad, and with a barrage of 1's on the command dice, I also brought on the 2" mortar team (here being proxied as the 2" team didn't return from their last outing, and have disappeared entirely..). the sniper, AND in the Chateau, a PIAT team is anxiously eyeing off the road where the Panzer will doubtless arrive.

What's that.. 4 sixes?

Having then got two Shermans onto the table, I proceeded to roll 4 sixes, triggering a random event, which saw a mortar barrage arrive squarely on my firefly, damaging the optics..   I then got no 3's in the extra phase, and had to watch as the Germans deployed and fired their Panzerschreck, and the Panther, both of which took shots against my Firefly, and fortunately for me, missing..

It says something for the quality of Steve's shooting dice, that throughout the game, the 'Schreck' team returned twice to their jump off point to restock on rockets..  having I think a total of seven shots, and hitting with only one, which someone I managed to shrug off with some engine damage.

Germans having no luck

That pretty much set the pattern for the game, the sniper and mortar did sterling work, whittling down the German squad on the left (above), and with smoke being deployed, the Panther was left with little to shoot at while I pushed the other Sherman down my right flank, supported by infantry moving tactically.  The sniper was in good form, targetting leaders and causing rolls on the 'Bad Things' table, whittling away the German Force Morale.

The Sherman's 6 HE dice causing major pain to Panzergrenadiers behind a hedge.. the Panther is looking to respond.

Unfortunately for Steve, the infantry squad facing my rampaging Sherman was no more successful with their three Panzerfaust than the Schreck team were. (I think it's safe to say that I really rode my luck in this one.)

The British sniper is performing magnificently, and now takes out the second man from the Schreck team, and a Bad Things Happens roll..  German morale is really not good, not helped by wounded squad leaders on both the left and right hand squads.

Peek a Boo

The Sherman ducks back as the Panther starts nosing about, and the PIAT team have squirmed their way forward into the last building in the row, with the Schreck team gone, they can capture a German Jump-Off point, and take out the Panther in a blaze of glory..   needless to say, the PIAT shell is completely ineffective against the Panther, which does however back up, not wishing to tempt fate.

The PIAT team see their chance and charge forward to capture the Jump-Off point, which is defended only by a single German Officer.. who does happen to be armed with a machine pistol, and is better quality and so find themselves rolling four dice to the German fourteen?   Not a problem, we will happily trade a single casualty on the PIAT team, for a German Senior Leader killed, German force morale drops again.

Shhhh..don't tell

So his Panther had to respond..   what's that in the distance, shrugging off the ineffective and inconsequential Panzerfausts of the third German squad? Oh yes, the Firefly, lining up a shot on the flank of the Panther, and meanwhile brassing the place up with the Co-ax.

Ouch

Scratch one Big Cat

And with that, the Germans lost their last AT capability, and had no answer to the rampaging Sherman shelling them out of the hedges and fields. Steve pulled back what was left of his battered platoon, and it was all over.

In hindsight, I simply couldn't have been luckier with my armour. They were the targets of 9 shots from the Fausts, 7 from the Schreck, and several shots from the Panther till smoke was used to blind the monster. The real clincher was that none of the shots were from close enough.

So we are now waiting for Steve to finish painting up his US infantry, so we can have a crack at some of the other scenarios. I wonder if I can persuade some other club member to do the setup and so on?

Again a cracking game, unfortunately, with all the luck on my side. The German threshing machine never really got going, and we were so focused on the armour that it sucked all the attention away from the rest of the action.  Looking forward to the next one.

Pak 38

And here's the Warlord Pak 38. It can be built into a reasonably nice model, but it is not the greatest cast out of the mould. The barrel especially needs to be shaped before assembly. In hindsight I probably should have replaced it using a PSC plastic barrel from the Russian AT kit, and made my own muzzle brake.

Order of build is important. Leave the trails off till just before attaching the lower front shield.
1. Straighten axle assembly, glue on left hand side of mount, make sure the front angle exactly corresponds to the fixed right hand side. If necessary, once glued, use a flat file to get the correct angle.
2. Attach barrel. Check how straight this is on the mount, as the little lip on the underside of the recoil mechanism is not flat out out of the mould.
3. Attach wheels or main shield either will do. If attaching wheels, you may find it easier to make parallel scores in corrugated cardboard or similar as a jig to keep them aligned straight when glued.
4. Attach the bit you didn't do in 3.
5. Bend down slighly the lower part of the pivot assembly on the trails, attach trails (note that the towing eye goes to the inside, as do the handles) and gently squeeze teh pivot hinge back into place. glue from underside.
6 Attach lower shield. You may find (depending on wheel assembly) that you need to file down the edges slightly to make it fit between the wheels. I ran into all sorts of issues and it isn't straight. I am going to file it slightly to make it less obvious.

The result:

And isn't it annoying how in large images you notice stuff you don't with the naked eye? There is flash on the traverse control and a weird bulge in the barrel just forward of the recuperator slide. Ah well. It won't be noticeable when painted. (I hope).

Warlord Pak 36

Over on Lead Adventure Forum, someone was asking about the Warlord Pak 36 model, so here's some pictures of the assembled model. Not very exciting I know.

Workbench

On the workbench, just keeping things ticking over nicely.

French - a mix of Crusader and Warlord, plus some signs, still early days.

There's a Somua in the background there, which was a fun exercise in airbrushing and now just needs weathering to tone down the garish paint. I also see that Warlord has done a spot of national stereotyping there, I got the command figure with Gauloises and wine bottle.

A mix of officers from Crusader, Warlord and A.N. Other, which I sourced from some FFL figures. Anachronistic? Sure, Lt LeBlanc has always been old-fashioned. The mortar team is Warlord and is more of a colour experiment than anything. 

And here's some more ready for the paintshop after their basic colour, a mix of a tan and a green that I wondered about as it came out the colour of Airfix green plastic, but is actually a very close match for Vallejo Brown Violet.

French Platoon plus some supports.

These will get flesh and equipment colours, then a super shader wash before they get highighted.

A Panhard sits in what will eventually be a minefield, some barbed wire, table clutter, fencing etc.

The Panhard is a relatively cheap support option in Chain of Command, and I suspect will see plenty of game time. I'm also building up some basic bits and pieces like stretches of barbed wire, emplacements, minefields and so on.

Annoyingly, I can't find the packet of barbed wire I bought some time back. I am assuming it will turn up and I can just claim it's very fine wire until I either get to a show and replace it, or it shows up in the many and varied boxes I have in the shed.

All the terrain pieces will get a going over with the grouting mix, some sand and white glue, painting with home paint samples, and a light flocking.

You can't beat a good bunker, leastways, not without a flamethrower, or engineers.. 

Finally - two bunkers, guns sourced from sprue and the spare barrels in the PSC 28mm Russian guns pack, which may no longer be available. Bunkers themselves are expanded polystyrene cut with a bread knife, then grouted and painted. They'll do..

Sample British Airborne

As I noted before, I picked up a bag of British paratroop PIATS (8) in a bag at a Bring & Buy.. it's take some time, but finally tracked down the manufacturer, 'Renegade Miniatures' - who sadly seem to be on hiatus at the moment. I reckon they are the nicest Airborne minis I have seen, but sadly incompatible with the Artizan ones I have.  Here's how they turned out.

I'm really happy with these, but now.. do I sell these and get Artizan PIATS, or do I sell the Artizan, and look  for the OOP Renegade Minis...

Size comparison

L-R - Crusader French, Renegade Para x 2, Artizan Para, Warlord German

As you can see, they are considerably bigger and chunkier than the others.