Works in Progress from the Shed: Buildings, Ships and Conversions.

A few pics of things that I am working on…

An Airfix resin building based up.

Back view of the same, the extra rubble was made up of budgie grit, cat litter (clean of course) and Linka casting in plaster.

A pair of Dutch styled buildings based together.

Back view: I’ve tried to find a compromise between putting on a realistic amount of rubble and keeping areas clear for game-ability.

Given that I got all three building at 50% of RRP I’m quite pleased with them. They paint up well and I don’t think you can have too many building in an Urban Skirmish set up.

The Italian Impero, a Littorio class Battleship (never completed in WW2 though). 1/200th kit by Revell.

45 minutes later I had finished it. I find ship kits to be quite enjoyable to build.

I’m slowly working through my ship collection, I’m aiming to use them for both Fletcher- Pratt style games as well as Air to Surafce attack games with 1/600th planes.

I decided to try my hand at a quick conversion: I wanted to make some US SOF figures with the short lived XM25 grenade launcher (see the wiki page for a quick overview of its developmental history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM25_CDTE ). To try and keep some sort of continuity I used parts from the same sculptor but 3 different companies: Figures by Under Fire Miniatures, heads by Vepa Miniatures and the backpacks were left overs I had from the TDQ/ CP Miniatures Falklands range.

Tools of the trade, pretty simple really IO don’t know why I put off trying it before for so long.

The end result: pretty pleased with it for a first try.

One figure will be painted in Multi- Cam the other in the slightly older ACU scheme.

Cheers,

Pete.

Afghanistan Skirmish AAR.

Here are a few photos from one of my recent games:

It is another playtest of my Afghan take on NUTS!.

Work is progressing on it slowly- I’m finding it slow going to write something that other people will read and use compared to writing a quick scenario specific game rule for use at home. There are bits that I’ve written that work very well but then there a bits that I think could do with some work too… I’ll keep plugging away at it.

Anyway on with the pics:

The table: this was a head to head game. This is the view from the defending Taliban side.

Brits take cover behind a low wall.

Meanwhile the ANA advance across a field.

A Taliban RPG gunner lies in wait at the edge of the village.

The Brits take their first casualty- at this point the dynamics of the game change from the mission to CASEVAC.

The Brits have walked into a strong defensive position of the Taliban and are struggling to win the firefight.

Meanwhile the ANA get pinned down at the edge of the fields and get overrun by a small group of Taliban.

At this point the game was called. The Coalition although started well become bogged down with a position that it couldn’t successfully outflank, with the need to evac a casualty it would have to call on a significant amount of support to extricate itself from that position.

Will tweak a few rules and have another playtest soon hopefully.

Cheers,

Pete.

1st quarter 2014 Progress Report.

In the first 3 months of 2014 I managed to paint 61 20mm figures (should have done better), finish 6 20mm plastic kits (appallingly low) and read 30 books (much more like it).

Cheers,

Pete.

The two games of last week.

Last week I managed to get a fair bit of gaming in so I thought I’d post them up.

Firstly Evan and Bill came over to mine for a game set in Chechnya played using my modern take on the Two Hour Wargames system. As it was a small scenario- a Russian truck has got stuck in a bad part of the area so a squad has been sent out to escort them to safety while two small groups of Chechens move in for the kill- we played it twice. However the pictures are from the first game only. Game 1 saw Bill and I take on Evan’s Chechens, while game 2 saw Me take on the role of the Chechens whilst Bill reprised the Russians.

A view of the table from the Chechen entry edge.

Again but from the Russian side- the green radio truck was the objective.

Russians advance to rescue their comrades.

The truck crew hide in the recently fortified abandoned house.

The Russians spread out as they close on their objective- passing between two wrecks.

However the Chechens have moved up to blocking positions.

The first attempt for theRussians to leave the safety of the ruins met with disastrous results.

Long story short- a PKM is a powerful asset in any fire fight.

However some good shooting from Bill’s Russians even things up a little.

However Evan responded by moving up with grenades…

With predictable results. The first game was a clear win for the Chechens.

The second game was a little more balanced- both side took heavy casualties but couldn’t finish each other.

Secondly I went up to chez Evan on Sunday for a WW2 skirmish using NUTS!- this time a troop of three British Shermans has been isolated in a forward position and have to hold out until the infantry can move forward to support them, meanwhile German tank hunter teams close in. I played the Germans whilst Evan took on the Brits. It was also a chance for us to try out the rather nice large hills he has been making.

The table Evan had set up- the Shermans set up in the walled farm and their reinforcements entered on the far edge.

The set up positions of the Shermans- trying to cover as much ground as possible- there were a few dismounted crew men covering the blind spots.

A German tank hunter team moves forward.

A STUGIII moves forwards to duel with the Sherman Firefly- unsurprisingly it came off worse. Due to the random deployment of the Germans I went with what I had rather than trying to reposition and expose a flank.

On the positive side my Panzerschreck team found its target and brewed up a Sherman.

Whilst redeploying to meet the threat of the PanzerSchreck the Firefly looses its commander to a well placed K98 bullet.

Then the same Firefly had its tracks shot out by a PanzerFaust. We called the game there as the Britis infantry were advancing on to the table. My attacking infantry had taken heavy losses but had KO’d on Sherman, immobilized a second and killed 2 other crewmen. A close thought game that swung back and forth.

Given real life stuff… blah blah… you know the story… I’m massively behind on posting up my battle reports so I’ll drip feed them out based on whim so watch this space.

Cheers,

Pete.