Project Work has resumed

 

With work of refitting the basement pretty much done, time has been freed up to return to more important tasks - painting miniatures.

Next up in the queue are some 15mm US Vietnam forces for an upcoming club project.  These mini's are all from Battlefront and need to get painted over the course of May.  There's some light terrain work for the project.

It's nice to be able to have sometime to get back to the painting bench!

Weekend Basing Fun

 

Saturday afternoon and then Sunday morning was an epic basing session for both the Soviet and German Stalingrad armies.  The figures were purchased from GAJO Miniatures and look way better than what I can muster (and did for the most recent Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenger.

Two base scenicing methods were employed - my bog standard "country side" basing which uses a Vallejo texture gel - as pictured on these Soviets. 

Once the gel sets (about 8 hours) I mix up some craft paint to look kind of like Vallejo USA tan Earth.  The mix is roughly a quarter sized dollop of "Country Tan", a drop of "Burnt Umber" mixed with the same volume of water.  It's a pretty close match and way cheaper.

The bases are then painted and set aside to dry (takes about an hour.

The next step is adding some ground foam - i work with a pallet of 4 types of ground foam.  Each base receives a coating of Modge Podge matte medium applied with a brush, and then a sprinkling of ground foam.  I then hit the base with a spray of water to draw up the modge podge and then set aside to dry.

Here are some Germans all done.  2 full German infantry companies plus supports where based for the countryside

and some Soviets.  This session I added 2 full Soviet Rifle companies, which augment the 1 I did during the most recent Painting challenge.

The second method of basing is dead easy and used for urban / rubble bases.  The picture shows the 2 German infantry companies if prepared with this method.

The process is simple - layer the entire base with modge podge and then dunk the base in a mixtures of colored sanded tile grout and different types of model railroad ballast.  My came from the debris of making the hexes for Stalingrad.

Shake the bases to get rid of loose gravel and then take a soft brush (I liberated one of my wife make up brushes) and dust most of the tile grout powder that may be on the figures - leave a little as it's a nice form of weathering.  Once the figures are dusted, hit the entire base with a few water spritzes from a spray bottle and set aside to dry.  Once the grout sets, it's rock hard.  The bases look great and there is zero painting!

Here are two additional Soviet Infantry companies with urban bases.

I'm pretty much done with figures for Stalingrad - especially when I count the fantastic minis Tony painted up .

I've got 7 full Soviet Infantry Companies and 4 german plus Tony has another 3 German companies.

There still are some specialty figures to finish up.  I do need a few extra guns....

Something A little Different for the AHPC XI: 15mm Vietnam US Infantry

 

A bit of a welcome break from grinding on my Stalingrad project - 15mm US Infantry from Vietnam.  I don't know the provenance of these figures as they were given to me by Ed from the club but these 14 chaps were fun to paint up and scenic the bases.

They're intended to be used in Ed's running campaign game using the "Charlie Company" ruleset which is a combination skirmish & RPG style game.

Ed ran a game with Tom and I last November using the rules.  It was a simple scenario where Tom I were both leading squads who were tasked with wandering down a road looking for a broken down M-113, which we needed to fix and then get off the board.  It a cooperative style game where the players control one US side and the GM controlled the VC.  It was a lot of fun and at the end of the game, Ed gave me a bag with 14 figures for my own squad, which now have been painted up.

This game is at the top of my list when I can get back to in person gaming.  Hopefully I can coax Ed into running a few more games.

I've also done a lot of work for the Stalingrad project which will get posted in due coarse.  I'm building up my strength for the last terrain push of a 100 or so hexes!
 

Painting Challenge Submission 5: Minefields, River Monitors and Panzer IIIs

My 5th submission for this year's Painting Challenge is an eclectic mix and contain my first two projects related to the "Chambers' of Challenge" aspect.

First up are 6 minefield hexes - the mines are visible if you look hard and that's the point - players should stumble upon them rather than see them

Nothing to fancy here - justs a standard rubble hex with about 10-15 "mines" attached

The mines where made with a tiny hole punch I used to make rivets back in my model railroading days.  I used black 1.5mm thick matt board for the mines.

The next chamber related submission are two 15mm scale River Monitors from Battlefront's Vietnam line.  The hulls and turrets are resin and the gunbarrels and other details are plastic.

These models are being painted up for a fellow club mate and you may see them on You-tube in the distant future.

Lastly, as I was organizing my hobby space, I stumbled on a box of Panzer III J's from Plastic Soldier Company.  Knowing these would be most handy for my Stalingrad project, I built and painted them up.

These models are not as detailed as the more recent Battlefront plastic kits but their at least 7 years old and where pretty ground breaking in their day.

I am supposed to receive an order from Battlefront today which has a lot of early war Soviet tanks and AC's so expect to see a lot of Russian armor over the next few weeks.

With this submission, my total points for the Challenge stands at 1,233 out of a total target of 2,500.  I'm feeling pretty good about my "productivity" but the points accumulation pace may slow as the next few projects are related to Hex terrain and that requires a lot of steps so progress will slow.  Still I'm feeling pretty confident I'll beat my target.

This year's challenge is off to a blazing start and I really do recommend you go over and check it out.  Most of the painters participating this year have skills way beyond mine and the quality and breadth of their submissions is most impressive.

Lastly, as announced on our You-Tube channel, the club is kicking off a ancients campaign based on the Pyrrhic campaigns of 280 to 275BC.  The Romans "senate" will choose which players from the club oppose Pyrrhus and his allies.  Who is the senate - the patrons of the channel so it should be fun to see what roles we all get to play in the campaign.  You might even get to see my Republican Roman army on the table top.  Who is playing Pyrrhus and his allies - that's a secret, for now.

 

Russian Infantry Company and Supporting guns, AHPC XI entry 4

Some Troops for Stalingrad - a Soviet Infantry Company and some supporting guns.  15mm scale and the figures are all from Plastic Soldier Company.  To be honest the casting quality isn't the best but the price can not be beat
 

An infantry company of 3 platoons of 4 squads.  As mentioned earlier, I am working on a new set of WW2 company level rules to use during the game where one base = 1 squad or AFV.  I'm writing the rules to be basing agnostic so players can use really any basing the want.

Some support options in the form of 4, 45mm AT guns and 4 76mm artillery pieces.

I've got a lot more Soviets to paint up...

Return to the Stalingrad Project

After a bit of a break and a dalliance with 6mm ancients, it's time to return to the Stalingrad project.  I'm really excited to get back to work and decided to begin by painting up some Soviet Infantry and artillery.

All of the figures of from Plastic Soldier Company

I've also been working on the CAD design for some new Central Stalingrad historical buildings so there should be some interesting progress over the next few weeks.  At least that's the plan! 

 

Quatre Bras at the Club, Part 2

 

Last night we finished up the Quatre Bras game.  Tom and Ed returned to command the Allies.  For the French we had new commanders in the form of Greg and myself.  The ruleset was General D'Armee.  Since I was playing, I didn't take any pictures except at the end.

The game resumed at turn 8 and the French attack continuing with the Allies getting ground down.  Last game Josh had effectively formed a grand battery of all the French Artillery and it continued to pound the Dutch troops.

Greg sent in Jerome's Brigade, which had the best French troops in a series a attack columns and punished the Dutch the Dutch in the center.  At the same time both Ed and Tom launched calvary attacks on both Flanks - one forced a French brigade to retreat while the other was me by French Cavalry and pushed off.  Their two British Infantry brigades deployed along the cross roads and became a formidable defensive position.

After a few turns of trading blows, the French managed to break the 2 Allied cavalry brigades on either flank.  That brought our broken Allied Brigade tally to 4, which was enough for a French victory.  It was kind of a cheap way for us to win but there you go.  Taling on those British brigades would have been difficult as the French infantry was pretty chewed up by then.

Greg did comment that the club has played Quatre Bras a number of times with the "Age of Eagles" ruleset and every game resulted in a resounding French Victory.  It's a tough scenario for the Allies to win.  Our game was a little closer run but the French moved with a bit more alacrity than they did historically.  Perhaps a better way to balance the scenario is to put some limits on the French command dice.  I really like the overall scenario and will run it again with some tweaks to make it a little more fun for the Allies.

Quatre Bras Using General D'Armee

 

Last night at the club, we re-fought the Battle of Quatre Bras using my 15mm Naps and the General D'Armee ruleset.  I was the GM with Steve and Josh playing the French and Tom, Greg and Ed commanding the allied forces.

I used the scenario for the excellent 100 Days General D'Armee scenario PDF which you can get from TooFatLardies.  The scenario started with 7 French Brigades on the board against 2 Dutch brigades of questionable quality.  The allies will receive a brigade or two per turn.  The French have a heavy Cavalry Brigade coming on mid game and by then the sides will be "evenish" with a troop quality advantage to the French.

The French attack got off to a slow start given some bad luck with ADC rolls and a good number of resulting Hesitant Brigades.

Finally the French made contact Bylandt's Brigade - one of Bylant's battalions managed to form a square and the other, well, didn't.  Lancers and Infantry don't mix well.

On the other side of the table Steve's French finally started moving and began enveloping the Dutch - to their rear there are two British Brigades coming on the table and none-too-soon.

We got to turn 8 of 18 last night and will continue the game next week.

This will be a hard one for the Allies to pull off.

15mm Stalingrad Mock Layout

Starting to layout the table for my 15mm Stalingrad game.  On the table now is the far left hand side of the table (if you were standing in the Volga River) and covers the Jan 9th square and Grundinins Mill.

The Pavlov's House model (painted white) is a set of MDG buildings from "Things for the Basement" - it's a great kit and I really like how TFTB lays out their MDF kits.  It's also "true 15mm scale" and some of the ruins I've been experimenting with are a little sub-scale, so they'll need to be revised

An example of a size revision is my Grundinin's Mill scratch build (next to the chimney).  It's way to small when compared to Pavlov's house.  i'll need to redo the Mill so it's a good bit bigger.  The existing version will be repurposed for another ruin so no big loss.

This section of 6x18 hexes represents about 20% of the table so there is a lot of work to do.  As I'm building this for Historicon, I will feel a little silly if the convention isn't held!

I also need to paint up some 15mm Russians - at least I know what I'll be working on for this year's Painting Challenge!

 

NOLA Campaign: Third Battle of the Tenesaw Gap

 

Last monday we fought the third and likely final battle of the Tenesaw Gap from the NOLA Campaign.  There are two turns left in the campaign and the French and the outcome is still to be determined.  The NOLA campaign is my silly Napoleonic game that simulates a French invasion of America, which is defended by a combine US and British force.  The battle was fairly even with 5 US and British divisions (4 Inf, 1 Cav) up against 5 French divisions (all infantry) plus the artillery reserve.  We played the game using the ESR ruleset.  The scenario had the pursuing French army catching up to the retreating US/British force.  The French would enter on the left side of the map and all of the US/British forces are deployed.

Lannes enters with his single division on the far side of south western corner of the map 

Ed begins shaking out his  two British infantry divisions into line formation.  I took command of the US Corp in the center of the picture.  We placed the cavalry division in the center and planned to use it to support whichever flank had the most pressure.

My forces getting prepared to meet the french attack.  Lannes continues to move against my flank as Davout's 2 divisions and the French artillery reserve enter the board and eye my positions menacingly.

Ed elects to defend a forward position as he hopes to switch to the attack if the opportunity presents itself.

Josh (Napoleon) deploys his artillery forward he is attempting to form a grand battery and if he can do within range of our forces it will be devastating.  Artillery range is only nine inches in ESR (using 1" = 100M) but a grand battery can erase whole divisions at a time.

Seeing an opportunity the British cavalry charge forward trying to catch the artillery unprepared.  They can not form the grand battery but the six batteries do get off individual fire and its enough to force the cavalry to break off the charge  and retreat to lick their wounds- a golden opportunity lost

Lannes (Greg) forms into line for the attack as Davout (Dave) moves toward the hill

My 2nd division moved to occupy the woods (we removed the canopy) while the 1st division prepares to meet its French hosts on the reverse slope of the hill.

While the calvary recovers - Ed sees a gap in the line between Soults(Dave) corps and Davouts and elects to attack.

Lannes and Davouts attacks charge home - there will be seesaw fighting for 4 turns in the woods and on the hill

Josh can not bring his artillery reserve to bear and decides to move forward - the calvary see their chance and charge again - this time the french can only unlimber a few guns and the charge goes in devastating the limbered guns

Ed continues his attack.  By the way it's a general rule of thumb in the club whenever Ed consults the rules during a turn it usually means something really bad is about to happen to your army.

Just as the cavalry charges the guns for a second time the fight in the woods is over as both divisions break at the same time.

With artillery dispatched, the British cavalry wheel and charge Davout's attacking division in the rear - caught between the cavalry and an American infantry division they are overwhelmed.

We called the game at this point as time was running out.  It was declared a US/British victory and will have a major impact on the campaign.

Stalingrad Game Table Planning

One of the more rewarding aspects of putting on a historical participation game is doing the research.  In the case of Stalingrad there is a wealth of information available in books and online.  Perhaps the single best source of information is David Glantz's three volume series on the titanic battle.  These books are not light reads but are extremely well researched.  Volume 1, To the Gates of Stalingrad covers the initial phase of the German 1942 Offensive (April to August 1942),  Volume 2, Armageddon in Stalingrad (pictured) covers the initial German Assaults from Sep to November 1942.  Volume 3, Endgame in Stalingrad covers Russian counter offensive and the ultimate surrender of the 6th army in Feb 1943.  You can find his books on Amazon at this link

Col Glantz resides in the region and you'll see him interviewed by two of my club members in an upcoming Little Wars TV video.

Since I want to do a tactical level game, it's impossible to depict the entire battle so I need to pick a specific action and are of the city.  That proved to be especially difficult as this titanic struggle had many unique areas of operation but I've decided on depicting operations in Central Stalingrad during the latter half of September 1942 - specifically the area of operations involving the Soviet 13th Guards division.

Why this slice of the battle vs others?  Several reasons.  

I find the story of the 13th Guards particularly compelling and this is a project that will take 10+ months to finish.  I have found (the hard way) that one needs to pick storylines that are personally compelling when embarking on large, crazy projects like this or they turn into drudgery about halfway through and sometimes never get completed or get done in a half assed way.

Another reason is this was a see-saw battle with the Germans reaching the banks of the Volga several times only to be thrown back by desperate Soviet counterattacks.  Good participation games involve both sides having both defensive and offensive roles - that makes for better "gaming theater"

Lastly the central area of Stalingrad has lots of iconic terrain aspects which will be fun to build BUT it is not dominated by any one giant feature.  The tractor works was a huge facility and would take up 1/2 of a table just like the Mamayev Kurgan or grain mill would).  Having a single terrain piece dominate a table draws players to it and essentially dictates the flow of battle.  That may be accurate from a historical perspective but a s a GM who will run the game 6+ times that gets boring.  Seeing players come up with ways to solve a problem that I never conceived of is one of the more rewarding aspects of being a GM.

My goal is the field a 10x5 foot table that is as close to an accurate model of the central Stalingrad area as I can achieve.  The first step is to define the boundaries

Using powerpoint, I placed a box that matches the table dimensions where the length is twice the width and then started to move it around to see if I could cover all the "main sites".  Specifically I wanted to include:

- the Univermag Department store (left center)

- Train Station #1 (upper center)

- Pavlov's House (right center)

- Grudinin Mill (lower right)

The major drawback from this configuration is I don't have the Volga river which would be visually nice and add a little drama to the game as the soviets defend with their backs to the river.  There are three options to solve this issue:

- Add another foot or so to the table width (make it 8x6)

- Make the buildings at a 10-12mm scale.

- compress the map and remove some terrain  

It will likely be the latter as a 6 foot wide table in a game where players need to move unit stands over rubble terrain and building interiors is just asking for the dreaded "belly smash" along the table edge as players with ample "stored provisions" lean across the table crushing everything in their path.  It is not a pretty sight and the cries of minis as they are about to be suffocated is something that will haunt you forever.

I think some creative terra-forming is in order but I need to think on it a bit to figure out exactly what to do.

Building wise the plan is to build as accurately as I can 15 or so "landmark buildings" - pretty much all of the ones identified on the map images above  and then have a bunch of standardized rubble hexes for the smaller building that were mostly demolished and make up the majority of the terrain.  We'll see how that plan progresses over the next few weeks of test building.  Luckily there are a lot of 3D model of the iconic stalingrad buildings which will make doing some of them accurately a lot easier.

One last point.  When doing a very specific historical game at a convention filled with wargamers one needs to go into it with a rather thick skin.  No matter how much research goes into a game, you'll get some detail wrong and given the nature of the audience there will be someone there who will both notice and feel compelled to point it out, often in less than graceful ways.  For the most part these fault finders are trying to be helpful in their own special way but they just don't understand they may be the 8th person to remark that the brick coloring for the Grudinin Mill is 2 shades too dark or just don't have the communication skills to not come across as an ass.  My advice is to just assume positive intent and move on.  Remember one thing - while they may be criticizing an aspect of the game presentation, they didn't actually put the game on so who really cares what they think.   One of my business maxims is that any idiot can point out problems and reasons not to do something but there are precious few who actually try and do.

Stalingrad: Another Ruin Test and more Hexes

In my quest for "ruin perfection", I also tested out making ruins out of EPS foam (rigid insulation foam).  I broke out my trusty Proxxon Hot Wire cutter and cut some 3x8x1/8 inch sheets from a scrap piece of foam and went about trying to make a ruin.

There are some pluses and minus's to using EPS over matte board

+'s Include:

- Very easy to cut and shape

-Easy to score in battle damage

- Very light weight - which is important for terrain that needs to be transported

-'s include

- Very fragile - even with a coat of primer mixed with glue these pieces will be delicate and participation game terrain needs to be durable to withstand transport and over eager gamers

- Hard to mark out cut point without marring the texture

- Hard to cut against the grain precisely - windows are a bit on the uneven side

There will be a use for both materials but if I was forced to pick one it would be matte board

Given the planed table size will be 10x5 feet, I'll need a lot of hexes - in fact I'll need exactly 450.  With the blank hex inventory running low it was time to make some more.

Making hexes is really easy with the jig - cut a 4.75" x 4" wide block, make 4 passes on the jig and presto a hex is borne

It took about an hour to cut out all these which should keep me in business for a few days