Always More Toys

one of the traps of the Chain of Command rules is that you look at the available support options in a list, and think 'yeah, that would be a very cool vehicle' although there's actually pretty good odds for most, they will be used once, if at all.

But I'm a sucker for cool vehicles, especially when they are free, cheap secondhand, or available heavily discounted. So here's the latest batch to roll out of the painting shed.

Rubicon Sdkfz 250

Rubicon Sdkfz 251 

Italeri AB41 (1/48)

Resin PzIV unknown make - could not get this one to work.

I'm thinking I might drape some foliage over the PzIV. I just could not get this one to 'feel' right. The model itself isn't great, and I just couldn't get the paint to work for me. It's still a Late War Pz IV, but the quality of this and the Rubicon Panzer IV D/E I have to paint is light years apart. 

Where am I?

So despite the fact it's going to require a whole new set of 28mm Terrain, and that I already have about 6 or more platoons waiting for paint, I couldn't resist something different.

I had already, almost by accident, picked up a few bits and pieces, such as a Type 97 Tank, some Woodbine Company heads from Gripping Beast, a Sarissa hut..  Then with the Black Friday sales, and Warlord offering discounts, it would almost have been rude not to..  So - a Lanchester, etc..

First steps

This shows the Lanchester before detailing. It's not a bad model. (I am wondering what junk to put in the back). Plus the HQ for the platoon, 2nd Lieutenant plus Sergeant, Boys AT Rifle and the 2" Mortar. 

  

Sergeant & Second Lieutenant

Unfortunately, the picture quality isn't great. These are Perry 'Desert Rats', with Woodbine heads. I wasn't sure how well the heads would fit, and in some of the pictures, such as the foreshortened one below, they do look slightly large. Looking at the side shots though, it's certainly well within the range you will see on wargames figures, even if slightly larger than the Perry originals.

I still have to add green-stuff sock flashes, as these seem to have continued to be worn, but overall I am pretty pleased with the conversions, and I am looking forward to getting some paint on these. (I confess, I am tempted to give the officer a cricket jumper..)

And of course, these are for a platoon from 2nd Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Malaya 1942, for the Fall of Singapore. Beware masses of incoming plastic aquarium plants to build jungle... 

Weekend WIP

The weekend was a quiet one, so in between various household chores, I managed to get some model building in, and then a brief session with the airbrush. Unfortunately, I have been having problems with the new Iwata, so it was back to the trusty old Chinese knock-off...  So these are airbrushed, and some detail work started.

First up was the Italeri 1/48 AB41 armoured car. A bit of an oddity this kit, 'rubber' tyres, and a partly metal chassis. I reckon it looks pretty good. Obviously still needs further detail work, decals and weathering, but a good start.

Next up, a pair of Rubicon half-tracks. The Sdkfz 251 Engineer vehicle was a £10 pickup at Targe, and the 250 was heavily discounted from Wayland Games.

And a Pz IV. This was given to me, and I have reassembled and repainted it, adding some Milliput stowage. It's not a great model, not sure of the original manufacturer.

This one, again a pick up at Targe from a fellow club member, and again, not sure of the provenance. It's a 3d print, and includes a crashed Me 262, which I am going to disguise somehow so it has wider applicability. Lots of detail on this one, so a lot of work still to do.

An Airfix resin kit, I think originally badged as a Polish Bank. I had to add a lot of debris from MDF offcuts, chopped up cork and so on. Again, there's a whole lot of detail to be added.

So on the whole, some good progress, and I also made up some bases for my Victrix Late Republican Romans that I am going to put together for the Lardies new 'Infamy, Infamy' ancients rules.

Soviets Urrah!

Finally completed my Soviet platoon plus basic supports for Chain of Command.

It's been a lengthy process, and I had already completed the armour, but here they are; not the greatest paint job ever, but very serviceable.

Leaders & Support Options, Commissar & Medic

1st Squad, including two scouts

2nd Squad, including two scouts

3rd Squad, including two scouts

4th Squad, including two scouts

Junior Leader and AT Gun

Medium Machine Gun

Infantry gun & Junior Leader

All the supports - mortar, sniper, AT rifle, MMG and KV1 & T34

The figures are a mix of PSC Plastic 28mm Soviets, Crusader figures and some odd BTD picked up second hand. The artillery, mortar and MMG are PSC, while the tanks are Warlord Games plastic.

Targe 2019

Saturday 9^th November was the date for the annual Targe Show organised by the Kirriemuir Wargames Club. Unfortunately, this year, the dates clashed with Crisis in Antwerp, which is generally acknowledged to be one of the best shows in Europe. This meant that some traders, particularly Warbases and Dave Thomas, chose to attend Crisis instead. A couple of late cancellations also meant that there were fewer traders than usual.

Regardless – the show was well attended, with a couple of hundred on site over the day, and particularly pleasing, we saw quite a few families and younger folk among the Grognards. The bring and Buy seemed to be doing good business, and unusually, a lot of books were sold.

The quality of games was generally good, with some interesting display and participation games. There seemed to be a bit of a Japanese theme down the back of the hall with the Last Samurai game, and two separate Pacific War games run by Iron Brigade and SPIT. 

Iron Brigade

SPIT, set on the island of 'Lavipan'

It’s not too many shows where you get to see multiple renderings of the Kurogane Type 95 car and a Japanese APC. I think the APC is a resin cast from Anyscale Models.

The timing of Targe, late in the calendar year also means that some of the games have already done a tour of the shows via Carronade and Claymore, but their appeal is undiminished and they are all well worth a second, or a third look.

Special mention to Warhogs (Glasgow), who brought along an expanded version of their Stalingrad game. Apparently several hundred new figures had been added, and the board extended by another six feet. I’ve seen this several times before, but it is still a spectacle with loads of lovely little detail, and fantastic scenery. When I did a quick run around early in the day, there seemed to be guys scattering literally thousands of scale bricks all over the boards.  

Another unusual game, the siege of Rome, with the French pushing a sap forward while their siege batteries engage a Vauban fortification. 

Honourable mention to the Bay of Pigs game by the Gothenburg Gamers, using an adaptation of the Bolt Action rules, and included some very appealing (and big!) aircraft duelling over Cuba.

Given the number of games with a jungle setting, there were plenty of examples of unusual and interesting way to use aquarium plants for terrain. I shall certainly be using some of those ideas for inspiration for next year’s projects.

Iron Brigade

SPIT

Iron Brigade

Iron Brigade hit the Beach!

Winner of the best game was a lovely Star Wars game by Aberdeen Wargames Club, it used a variety of interlocked boards covering several environments, with plenty of eye candy in the form of very attractive figures and models. 

Overall, while it was disappointing that some of the traders couldn’t make it, it was still a very good day out.  Oh, and the bacon roll van did a roaring trade!

Blitzkrieg comes to Perbais

It's been a while between games, but we managed to get one in at the club on Sunday. It was the first game in the Too Fat Lardies 'Pint-sized Campaign', Gembloux Gap.

Having seen a couple of players struggle to win this scenario, I thought it was going to be a major challenge. The forces are a standard French platoon, to which Steve's support choices added an R35 and a Sniper; and a standard German Schutzen platoon. I had 10 points of support available, and ummed and ahhed about it for a while - a Stuka attack was tempting, as the buildings could be a major obstacle. I knew armour was a French option, and I also considered an extra squad, so they could bear the brunt of the casualties.

In the end I took the IeG 18 75mm infantry gun, for AT, and also to deal with troops hiding in buildings, 4 support points, a tripod mounted MG34 for 3, a red dice for 2, and finally a Shabby Nazi Trick. I really wanted a pre-game barrage, but couldn't see how to get the points in, when I needed stuff on-table.   

Steve had picked up some second-hand railway track, and sourced some teddy bear fur, so the terrain was pretty much sorted. It's interesting to have seen the terrain versions of Rich and Nick, and the 20mm version used by 'The Tactical Painter'. I don't think ours was too far off.

To the game itself, and both sides started with a morale of 10, and the Jump Off points were fairly neutral, I had one well forward on each flank and a much deeper one in the middle, on my base edge. Steve's were in the village itself

The basic plan was to use my support options (tripod MG and infantry gun) to dominate the table, push one squad down each flank, and reinforce whichever one looked like being successful.

The terrain, wide open spaces. The bright sunshine made photography difficult.

German initial deployment, a squad each flank, and a MG34 in the middle.

Ready to advance tactically across the wheat fields.

IeG18 75mm gun. I was hoping it would be a trump card.

Who's that lurking next to the French JOP? A shabby Nazi for sure! He was brilliantly effective. (Even though we did get the rule wrong.) Steve had real difficulty getting troops deployed to this JOP

Le Tank appears... It is immediately engaged in a firefight with the infantry gin which eventually it loses, and the crew bail out due to excess shock..

German Left, advancing stealthily across the fields they seem unopposed!

The German right tries the same

Ok, what now...?

The French deploy a squad, and a firefight erupts, in which the French have much the best of it, the German corporal is wounded and his men pinned. 

The German Lieutenant is sent out to shore up the situation

A nasty surprise on the German right. Two squads, one behind entrenchments..  

The survivors, very sensibly pull back

But the French have showed their hand, so the third German squad deploys and replaces the shot up 1st squad, with the MG34 moving up in support. In response, the French deploy the rifle grenadier team on the German left, but their fire is not hugely effective before they ran out of rifle grenades.

(I probably should say in the middle of this, Steve rolled 3 sixes to end the turn and my SL had removed a fair bit of the shock on the first squad, so I was able to move them.)

A German double turn pours 22 dice into their French opponents, twice, and in the ensuing French turn I play an interrupt and shoot again.  

The French sniper covering the French left before he repositions, luckily for me he only got off about 3 shots, Only one hit causing 2 points of shock.. 

The French Senior Leader is hit and Steve obliges with a one on the effect dice, he's dead, and with the junior leader also taking a second hit in the previous phase, all over, French Morale falls to 0, and the Germans have taken Perbais.

The difference was that my support options were much more effective than Steve's and once he had deployed on his left, trying to run men across the open road to support his isolated squad was a hazardous exercise while I was holding CoC dice to interrupt, and gun his men down crossing the road. There was also a dreadful toll of leaders wounded on both sides, with Steve losing two leaders killed. German morale was, 5, and they lost 11 men. So they immediately get 5 back, and then half the remainder, (3) are lost for the campaign, 1 returns to duty, and 2 return after the next game.

Another cracking game, and it's on to the next game in the campaign.