An ICM BM13 rocket launcher and a Trumpeter T10 heavy tank. Both in 1/72nd scale. I’m really pleased with the greasy gungy effectr I got on the T10- the oil wash coming into its own I think, could have done with a bit more wiped off though.
Also I’ve finished off two Britrannia models M113s from Vietnam. Nice to have some models of these fully crewed. Also a big thanks to John (Just Needs Varnish) for the gift of these, I hope you like what I’ve done with them.
Astute readers will notice the return of the outdoor step as I’ve broken the light box- needs a little glueing to get it back in working order.
Last weekend my friend Simon came over for some gaming. We managed to get loads in.
We started off with Zona Alfa- published by Osprey as one of their Blue Wargames rules series- it is a great skirmish game. Great rules that are very thematic.
Using a simple urban set up we had to battle through 4 hotspots to get the data recorded stashed in a skip/ dumpster.
Simon tried to be aggressive with me sniper rifle shots as well as MG fire shot across the battlefield… I thought that the molotoc cocktail that targetted my leader and machine gunner was quite unfair.
We then stopped for dinner (sausage, veg, potatoes, cake) and pulled out Aeronautica Imperialis to game with a couple of beers. It is a nice simple game whoose hex based manourvre system is rather clever.
As the game is fast playing we managed to get 2 scenarios played through- a stop the bomber one as well as trying to land troops on a target. It is a shame that GW haven’t kept the game in production really but that is often their way sadly….
At this point we called an end to the evenings gaming. To restart in the morning.
After a bacon butty breakfast I introduced Simon to one of my all time favourite games: Crossfire. The best WW2/ post WW2 tactical game imo.
Simon took to it easily and shared my appreciation of the system with its emphasis on fire and movement as well as winning the firefight. Using my Vietnam terrain and figures we again played out two quick scenarios. I’ve some ideas from those games to make up a quick map campaign for it now….
So five games in one weekend. It was great fun and did me a world of good mood-wise. Another session will have to be sorted out as soon as possible.
One of my favourite WW2 games is Crossfire. Although rather old now it still holds up as one of the better games covering infantry combat in WW2. It was, and still is, very innovative for its time with no fixed turn structure and no measuring needed. It has gone on to influence several other games, Red Poppy White Feather, and No End in Sight, both of which are worth looking at.
Martin R and I share I love of the system so went up a few weeks ago to have a few games. We used a pack of scenarios I got from the Balagan website, a fantastic resource in general too, and the Vietnam figures I had based up for another project, I’ll do a photo feature on them when I have the chance to get them all lined up.
We played through the first two scenarios a coupler of times, changing sides. We quickly got back into the rules again despite it being several years since we had both played them. Whilst the scenarios are small, with a rather spares table too, for a typical Crossfire table they have a surprising amount of depth to them. The defender has difficult decisions to make about deployment whilst the attacker has options in the line of advance but has to husband their resources carefully. It was a great way to spend a day gaming, one I hope to be able to repeat soon. Martin has done a write up on his blog here. It has inspired me to get more of my spare WW2 figures based up for Crossfire. As I type this the varnish is drying on some WW2 Germans.
In the afternoon after I had run my 5core: Brigade Commander game John A ran a playtest of the Cold rules that he has been working on.
For a test scenario John had looked to the 1970s field tests done by the British Army known as the Chinese Eye exercises. This was a series of field test to generate data on tank engagements for Operational Research purposes. You can read about it here– a must read book for anyone interested in Twentieth century warfare imo.
The rules are on a one-to-one basis for the tanks and fire team/ weapon team bases for infantry. We started up with a rather impressive battalion’s worth of forces arrayed on a broad front.
How ever advancing over open ground into the teeth of Chieftain tank and Milan ATGM fire took a heavy toll on our forces very quickly.
Whilst the game ended up very similar to the mythical turkey shoot it did give John’s mechanisms a good work out. I certainly look forward to playing the rules again with a more involved scenario.
As it happens Martin R has written a blog report here on the two games that is well worth reading.
Tim G of Megablitz fame has been running a series of monthly get togethers. About 6-7 of us gather for an all- day game including a very nice lunch. We have covered a variety of periods, scales and games often playing 54mm toy soldier extravaganders in the best traditions of HG Wells.
I decided it was time for me to put a game on and I had spoken to John A and we agreed to share a session with me doing the morning session and then John’s game running after lunch. I decided to do a 6mm ‘Cold War Goes Hot’ scenario set in the 1980s, using the 5core: Brigade Commander rules. I knew I had enough toys to give a big enough game and I knew the rules were fairly quick to pick up too so those that hadn’t played it would be quick to get up to speed.
I’ve put the scenario into my new scenarios page so you can download it.
The game went really well. The changes that I had made to the activation system worked better than expected. The Soviet preplanning was fun- not much use in the game as they tended to shell the places the Americans hadn’t deployed in.
The game swung backwards and forwards, mostly it went the Americans’ way with their extensive support chewing through the Soviet tank regiment. However, on the opposite flank a run of bad luck saw the Americans lose a string of units.
The surprise Spetsnaz assault on the HQ was defeated in Close Combat- much to everyones surprise.
At this point the Americans decided to retire to the next line of defenses. At that point we broke for lunch.
The game went really well, I think. Nearly a division of Soviets attacking two brigades of Americans and we finished in just about two hours. If the players fancy another go I’ve got plans for more scenarios.
My friend Simon recently got a new 3d printeer- one of the resin ones. He was playing around with it and did a few 1/76th Russian AFVs that he ultimately didn’t want so he passed them on to me.
The standard of resin printing is fantastic now: the detail is very crisp. I believe all of the files came from M. Bergman on thingiverse.
The BRDM 1 armoured cars, based on the BTR40 but fully enclosed. Mostly unarmed but could have a pintle- mounted machine gun.
The MTLB – a 60s design, mostly used as an atrillery tractor but also issued as an APC in arctic areas. Many are still in service. Many variants are based on this chassis, engineering to atgm carrier…
The BTR70 – a wheeled APC that was an improvement over the BTR60s. Not many made and mostly replaced now by the BTR80.
All vehicles were painted in acrylics, Vallejo Russian Green, and then weathered with various techniques before an all over oil paint wash to get that grimey look.
I’m please to say that the occasional gaming meet ups on a Friday have become a regular occurance. I thought I’d share with you some recent pictures. We have a regular venue which has the added bonus of serving excellent food. For someone who always thinks with his belly this is very important.
Firstly we trialed a set of 18th century rules that Tim has been writing. Great 54mm fun in the best traditions. Rifle fire was pretty nasty at short range and melee, especially involving cavalry, very deadly. Party poppers made a welcome return to represent grapeshot too.
After lunch and after that game had been finished and packed away we set up for a quick Vietnam themed Combat Search and Rescue scenario. 1/72nd aircraft were used with 54mm infantry. The pilot was randomly located in a grid (we used the symbols on the carpet) and a Forward Air Controller had to coordinate the search and rescue as well as directing aircraft to try and stop the NVA overruning the downed pilot. A great little game that we got through twice.
I’ve been painting up some more 6mm bits. I’ve been enjoying them recently as they are quick to paint. I find myself worrying less about individual vehicles and more on the mass effect of a unit.
6 bases of T55s- good for the whole Cold War really. From the early 50s right up to the armies of the Warsaw Pact allies of the 1980s.
A base of TMM bridgelayers. The models came with deployed bridges so I did a little base to show the bridge deployed. I’m thinking that a river crossing scenario is on the cards here.
A BTR 152 and a BMP1- I had these models spare so decided to give them a quick paint job them mount them on single bases.
Moving forward into the 1990s here are some BTR80a APCs and dismounted infantry. These should be good to go up against my friend’s later Warriors and Challengers.
To give them some support I did some 2S23 Nona SVKs (120mm breech loading mortars on the same BTR chassis).
As usual I’ve used two vehicles (and some infantry if appropriate) on a 50mm square base to represent a company and single vehicles on a 30mm base for a platoon sized attachment. This is how I’ve been organising my forces for Nordic Weasel’s 5core: Brigade Commander, my go to set of rules for 6mm Cold War games.
I was going to do an update post but I thought you don’t want to just read about me maoning about my problems so I thought I’d do something more positive and tell you about something fun…
… one thing I’ve really been enjoying recently is a series of large scale outdoor games run by Tim. As I’m sure most of you know the first widely publilshed book on wargaming was H G Wells’ Little Wars*. These were games played on the floor with traditional 54mm toy soldiers. There has been a recent renassiance of these games with the publication of Funny Little Wars and Little Cold Wars, these games use the same sort of mechanisms (occasionally a matchstick firing cannon gets up- graded to a nerf gun). The games are based around fun and enjoying some gaming time with friends rather than a serious military simulation, however it is interesting how ‘good’ a result, ie historically plausible, these games generate.
Anyway enough waffle from, me on to the pictures:
The first game I joined in with was the defence of Fort Fisher in the ACW. I was one of the Confederate defenders against the Union combined operation.The defences were manned but we were heavy on firepower but light on men. Still it was good funb firing the cannon at the ships as they closed in.The Union tried to run a ship aground and blow it up to disrupt us. It didn’t work so well but they did make a landing in the centre of our fort and overrrun a few batteries (our defensive grapeshot, represented by party poppers, caused considerable casualties). Ultimately the Union didn’t have enough strength to sustain the attack so had to withdraw.I played as the defending US forces in a game set in the early days of the Korean War in 1950. Task force Smith was hastily assembled to stop a North Korean armoured thrust south. With only 2 pieces of artillery and a few bazookas I only just managed to blut the attack.On the same day as the Korean War game we played a small scenario representing the British parachute assault into the Suez Canal area in 1956. Each platoon stand was represented by a piece of card and dropped from shoulder height as we walked past the gaming area.Although the troop quality of the British paratroops was much higher than the defending Egyptians they did have the advantage of starting in bunkers.A much bigger parachute assault that I took part in was the 1970s South African asssault into Cassinga. Seen here are the defending African nationalist troops.Due to winds over the drop zone (read that as being a bit breezy on the patio) the SADF troops were quite widely scattered. Ultimately their superior troop rating and a bit of air support won the day for them.We revisited Suez 1956- expanding the game to include the French parachute assault as well.Again the air support on hand was rather handy for getting the defenders out of their emplacements.We went back to the first day of the Somme to test out some different artillery rules. Due to rain we had to move inside.The Germans had three lines of defenses with the first row being very lightly held.There was an extensive air phases prior to the troops moving (I was the RFC player for this).As can be seen the British defensive fire was quite effective. Sadly, for the RFC at least, this was due to ground AA fire not from dogfighting.The guns line up for the inital pre- attack barrage: this was a set number or rounds/ matchsticks against the clock. The artillery came in three phases: inital stonk, box barrage to suppress and destroy, then a creeping barrage as the troops went over the top. As was to be expected the British pals battalions took very heavy casualties, even though they made it to the first German trench line. The fun of the game was in the pre- assault preparation phases, working through the air combats and the different sorts of artillery.It has become something of a tradition at these sorts of games that I provide a cake- usually a teaf loaf. The laidback, jovial nature of these games with plenty of breaks for tea and snacks, not to mention sandwiches has been a real tonic for me having not enjoyed gaming at home so much recently.
So there you have what I’ve been enjoying gaming the most recently. I hope you found it of interest.
I have got a whole pile of pics covering what I’ve been doing so I’ll put them out when I can in what will probably be a mixed up order.
Cheers,
Pete.
* Robert Louis Stephenson had written a book on gaming earlier but it didn’t get anything like the wide reception Wells’ did.
One of the (many) facebook groups I’m on posted a link to a you tube video… it was an old British Army of the Rhine instructional video of how to defend against a Soviet attack in the early 1980s. I’m a sucker for that doctrine/ training type of thing so gave it a watch. It did give me an idea for a 5core: Brigade Commander scenario and, mindful of the current climate, decided to run it for Evan and Bill.
Bailey has inspected the terrain set up and approves.
The video shows the escalating attacks of a Russian division as it contacts a BAOR defensive line. The video ends with the Soviets forming up for a bigger attack in regimental strength. For the scenario I swapped Brits for West Germans (all provided by Evan) and let the Soviets (from the collection of Bill) deploy after the West Germans had set up. Bill picked two points of Evan defensive line and deployed a company, followed by a battalion 6″ back and the rest of the regiment another 6″ behind that at each point selected. If you watch the video you’ll see where I was coming from with this deployment. The objective for the game was the crossroads.
The crossroads were the key terrain of the game.The Soviets deploy in depth from their chosen routes of attack.Leopard 1s further back in reserve.The Soviets push forwards
As usual we used the Brigade Commander rules from Nordic Weasel. We three are big fans of the system and have built up considerable forces between us. We use a 50mm square base to represent a company and a smaller base for a platoon sized attached asset.
The dug in positions protected the vulnerable Leopard 1s from the worst of the fire, but they were slowly forced back.With anti air support the BMPs push towards the crossroads.The West German defenders in the BUA.Airstrike: unfortunately the SU24 was driven of by the Gepard SPAA.In return the West Germans send in their Alpha jet with impressive results.The lone mechanised infantry company makes an attack against the German held BUA.
The game swung backwards and forwards with the crossroads changing hands a few times. In the end, although casualties were very light on both sides, Bill had pushed Evan back from the area around the crossroads and had disrupted Evan’s armour so I decided it was a winning draw to Bill’s Soviets.
I may do a urban skirmish game based on the final, defeated assault of Bill’s mechanised infantry company. Something for later on….
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