A topical scenario from Jim Webster.

Over on Facebook Jim Webster was asking for pictures of ‘technicals’ for inspiration for a scenario. I dug through my harddrive and found some for him. He produced this game: https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/2021/08/30/afghan-september/ Go have a look- it ties into the re-release of his skirmish game Hell and Uncivil Disorder that looks at the low intensity end of 20th/ 21st Century combat with some interesting mechanics. It is available from Wargames Vault and I recommend it too.

If it is not happening currently it will be happening very soon imo.

Cheers,

Pete.

From the Shed: More 6mm desert building.

Quick post today… I’ve put some paint on the prints I ran off. Nice adobe style buildings for the MENA region or Afghanistan.

A couple got mounted on MDF bases with plasticard walls added to make compounnds.

I just gave them a quick paint job with the usual acrylics and washes. I bought the stl files from here.

Cheers,

Pete.

From the Shed: Afghan hill village.

I’ve been rather busy of late and have got a backlog of completed items to photograph and blog about. Painting for 20 mins a day is working out well and is getting quite a bit done so I am working through things. The 3D printer is out of commission at the moment sadly as it all need recalibrating (if that doesn’t work something more drastic may be required) but I’ve plenty to paint that I’ve already printed.

The basic building came from a thingiverse file here and was shrunk down to roughly fit in with my 6mm scale stuff. I made up a base with an old CD, the basic hill was made with scraps of foamcard and them a couple of plaster rock castings were added in, the whole lot was blended in with celluclay and then painted. The final touch was to add some grit for extra texture.

It should make for a nice objective in my 6mm Afghan games, I’m thinking it would be ideal for heliborne troops to assault.

Cheers,

Pete.

Some more Elhiem figures- 50s Cold War Brits, Soviets in Afghanistan and a MENA sniper….

Been getting on with some painting, trying to reduce the lead mountain and more importantly those many boxes of figures I’ve got lying around which are started but not finished. I seem to have developed a habit of cleaning, prepping, basing and undercoating figures then leaving them sat in that state in a box for months. Tidying the shed found lots of abandoned projects in that state today. Additionally the take up far more space than if I’d left them in their packets in the bare metal… any way I digress, on with the pictures.

First up is a generic insurgent sniper for the Middle East/ North Africa region. I made a little scenic base for him to fit into too to add a bit more interest.

I painted his trousers in a Russian camo pattern, you can just make that out hopefully.

Armed with the ubiquitous SVD sniper rifle.

I’ll use this idea for other figures too as well as trying a rural base.

Here we have 8 Soviets with a mix of small arms wearing the tropical uniform as seen in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

I’m getting drawn by the retro appeal of the 1950s to gaming the Cold War in that era. I painted up a three squads worth of Brits. They are suitable for that short window of time after the introduction of the SLR but before the WW2 still uniforms were withdrawn; so 1954- 1960.

NCOs have Sterlings the section LMG is the 7.62mm version of the Bren the L4. Section AT weapon is a bazooka (one is slungg on the back of the figure on the left.

One each of the Rifleman poses in the three squads.

Cheers,

 

Pete.

 

 

Assorted vehicles and terrain bits.

I’ve got these finally finished off since the new year (I’ll also do a looking forward/ looking backward post tomorrow) so I thought I’d do a big photo dump of a post to get them out there:

First up- a 6mm sized ruined factory made from bit of resin I got from a private seller on the Lead Adventure Forum.

A small house from Leven miniatures, again in 6mm.

A barricade from S and S model scaled for 20mm. I’m tempted to give the bus some more weathering.

A Armourfast 1/72 Valentine converted to a Bishop with an S and S aftermarket part; the short coming of the Armourfast suspension are evident in the photo more than in real life. I may yet do some remedial work on them.

A cheak FAI 1/72 diecast repainted and decaled into a Finnish scheme.

A trio of 1.72 Rhodesian Bush War vehicles from S and S.

A Rhodesian SAS conversion of a Unimog,

 

 

An armoured lorry.

Another Unimog conversion; this time a mortar carrier. I’ll add the crew at a later date.

Three diecast 1/72 BTR60PBs.

Firstly a simple repaint.

One converted into a command variant BTR60PAU, conversion kit by S and S.

Repainted with infantry seated on the outside Afghan style (they considered mines a bigger risk than snipers). Infantry by S and S again.

Cheers,

 

Pete.

Some heavy metal comes forth from the Shed.

These were the last  of the 1/72nd vehicles that brought me up to my total for the quarter- see last post.

First up a Dragon Models M103 heavy tank. A great kit to build, and the single colour paint job went well too. Serving from the fifties to the early seventies it will make an interesting opponent to my IS3s.

A Model Collect TOS1, basically the Katyusha from WW2 updated with Thermobaric warheads and mounted on a tank chassis, in this case a T72. They first saw operational testing in the Soviet war in Afghanistan then further use in Chechnya.

Last but not least we have an S and S models Jagdpanzer Kanone in resin, I acquired this one from ebay a while ago. Seems like the tank hunters design lived on a bit longer after WW2, the 90mm gun of its was a rmed with soon became obsolete; the chassis were converted to carry Anti tank guided missiles instead.

This trio should make for some interesting additions to my post war games.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

Black Ops game Report.

Over the past two weeks I ran a game of Black Ops for Brian and Evan, they took the role of the SOF troops whilst I plumpired the opposition. The first week was taking up with planning whilst in the second week we played the scenario out.

I created an 80 point force using the fanatic list and prepared the following briefing for Evan and Brian:

Target for tonight: The Bomb maker.

Coalition Briefing

Date: 2009.
Location: Afghanistan, Helmand Province.
Situation: Recent attacks on coalition troops have been shown to be the work of a new IED maker recently arrived in the area from the Pakistan tribal areas. SIGINT has pinpointed his location and a SOF raid has been authorised to remove him.
Victory Conditions: Kill the Bomb maker.
Intel/ Suspected Enemy: The bomb-maker has been using a large walled compound as his factory before moving the IEDs to the local Taliban for planting. Drone surveillance has shown that when the target is present the facility is guarded by 6-8 fighters but his group may be as 18.

Forces:

You have 80 points to spend from the Special Ops list. Decided on the forces you want, the style of attack and the time of day.

 

I also made a rough sketch map of the table I intended to use. Brian and Evan took a hour or so to make up their forces to a combined total of 80 points.

Brian went for an NCO (Ace) with a silenced PDW (fancy new SMG) who had the linguist and B+E skills and two Soldiers (Jacks) one with an Auto Shotgun, the team medic, and the final one with a suppressed Assault Rifle, who was the demolitions specialist.

Evan took and NCO (Ace) with an Assault Rifle and Under barrel grenade launcher, a Soldier (Heavy, King) with a GPMG and a Soldier (Jack) with a suppressed Designated Marksman Rifle. Given that Evan’s team was to play a supportting role he elected not to buy any skills.

Both players agreed on a night attack so equipped the entire force with Night optics.

Here we took a week’s break, waiting till the next game night to play the raid out. This gave me a some time to paint up a few extra figures we needed for the game.

The table set up for the game. The wall was considered to be contiguous and over head height with only one gate at the top middle of this photo. The guards are arranged around the compound with the balance of the forces split between the main centre building and the double building on the right.

Another view of the table. Both Brian and Evan’s troops entered from the right hand side amongst the hills.

Brian’s figures enter the table.

The random moves of the guards kept both players movement cautious.

Basic overview of the game and each players route to the main compound.

Both NCO’s link up before beginning to clear the first building.

The Demolitions expert pre places a breaching charge before joining the two NCOs.

One of the guards wonders rather close to the two NCOs. In a bit of roleplaying Brian tries to get his linguist to call out to the guard to entice him closer. It’s a good idea but the role fails. Plan B is to quickly kill him then drag him inside.

All four figures have no entered the first building. The stealth rules are still in effect as the guards haven’t noticed that there is one missing from their number.

One of the guards is more observant than the others and notices Evan’s NCO lurking by a window and shots are exchanged. The guards spring into action and now come under umpire control. In the intial exchanged of fire the fanatics come out very badly.

Between the figures in the building and the DMR on the hill the guards fair badly. They do manage to get a shot on target and take down one of Brian’s soldiers. The medic stabalizes the wound but he’ll play no further part in the game. Four more fighters rush from the building to try and take out Evan’s NCO. All they do is provide so easy target practise for the GPMG. A fanatic PKM in the doorway tries to suppress the SOF troops as much as possible (the black counters) to try and help out the group of four joing the fight. Given he had no optics he could suppress the main threat which was the GPMG on the far hill.

With all the fanatics in the courtyard either dead of cowering Brian moves his figures up to the main building and deals with the PKM gunner

Entering the main building two more fanatics who escaped the fire of the GPMG are seen lurking in an inner courtyard, still no sign of the bomb maker mind.

As they move to engage a burst of AK fire down’s Brian’s medic with a fatal wound. Evban’s NCO can just be seen advancing in from the bottom of the shot.

Finally cornered in a side room the bomb maker meets his end. By this stage of the game Evan’s DMR armed Soldier has entered the compound via the pre placed demo charge.

The final score was all but one of the fanatics taken out for one killed and one wounded amongst the Coalition SOF troops.

The game went really well. so much that I am planning a follow up game from the intel collected from the compound. There are a few clarifications regarding the stealth rules that we would like but overall this first proper scenario was a great success.

 

Cheers,

 

Pete.

 

 

As promised some photos of toys : WW2, ‘Nam and Moderns.

Here are a few pics of what I have recently finished, I used the last of the day’s sun to photo them outside:

A brace of Armourfast M10s with S and S stowage and Battlefield crews- painted up for the Med theatre.

M24 Chaffe- the venerable Matchbox kit as reissued by Revell.

A 1950s SAS Landrover, an Oxford diecast with S and S detailing parts.

The JB/ Airfix M113 upgraded with an MJ Figures recoilless rifle.

Another M113 this time with an S and S auto Grenade Launcher and finished in a SF paint scheme for that Twilight 2000 game I’ll run someday.

Finally bringing things up to the present day I finished off 12 Elhiem US Rangers in the new Multicam armed with loads of hi tech kit.

Cheers,

Pete.

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.