Big Kats rule the day

Earlier this month, I was able to actually meet up with Stew (His fab blog should be a must follow) whilst my wife was away in Oregon with her sister, visiting family. It's been a few years (And Stew had added two new children to his family) since he and I had managed to hang out and play a face-to-face game so I was eager to travel up to his home and see what he had set up. Stew's old gaming pal, Paul was also invited and upon arrival I was pleased to see a typically well laid out table to represent "somewhere" in the French countryside, circa 1944. 

"What a Tanker" by Too Fat Lardies was chosen as game of the day (15mm scale), where Paul and I would take control of the Americans against Stew and his dastardly German Panther tanks.

We played for a goodly time, with many hilarious moments of crappy dice for us American players and consistently good dice rolled by Stew controlling his heavy German tanks. 

In the end, the day ended as a German victory with the Allies well and truly stumped, even though they had greater numbers. The pictures that follow illustrate how the game fared:

The table set up, using Stew's lovely 15mm terrain on his home made gaming mat. The multi-coloured slides at the back I'm sure were where the Big Kats played when not destroying Allied armour. 

Initial American set up. Paul and I each took identical teams of 2x Sherman and 1x M10 Tank Hunter

Stew had command of 4x Panthers. Somehow in the rules this was a force equal to our own, but as the game progressed Paul and I did not agree!

Early game Panther shot took out Paul's M10.

Hiding in the town, this is the Big Kat responsible.

Stew sent two Panthers down the lane, I moved my M10 to the West in an effort to support Paul's solo Sherman mid-left in the field.

Not much has changed about us since the last time we hung out. Well, aside from Stew getting greyer and I got better looking - of course!

Paul's Sherman sits, waiting at the hedgeline for a good shot at those panthers in the lane. He and I wasted a lot of our shots trying and failing to penetrate the Panther's thick front armour in lieu of using our mobility to try and get side shots. Hindsight...

A Sherman (Mine? I forget) pays for crappy dice rolls and an inability to move away

Darn it, there goes another!

That Panther Commander is going to get a medal for this.

Panthers in the middle and right menacingly moving on the American positions while Paul moves his Left most tank using the woods to shield him from that 4th Panther in the wheat field. It was at this point that Stew felt sorry for us and brought on some reinforcements for us to add to the mix. I couldn't count how many times Paul and I would manage to hit our targets and fail to do any damage up until that point and with 3 allied tanks brewed up the game was in effect over without these reinforcements. and so we carried on!

M10 & Sherman trundle up the lane, whilst a 2nd M10 comes in from the east 

Newly arrived M10 and sherman both sight their targets and.... again fail to damage. Yikes.

But somehow the German tanks also begin to suffer poor luck and Stew's dicerolls get everso suddenly cold!

My M10 has outflanked the Panther in the wheatfield. The Panther at this point is pretty much a bunker with a turret after a couple lucky shots during the game have affected it's mobility. Can  the Allies manage to get their first kill of the game!?

Paul's Sherman offers support on this shot from a safe distance. This Sherman was Paul's mvp - it didn't kill anything as his shooting rolls were awful, but the poor crew managed to see Panther shot after Panther shot "ding" off it's hull due to Paul's wonder defensive rolling. I believe they survived to game to it's end.

Still more missed shots 

Panther at the bottom goes to hunt Paul's mvp sherman. And misses. Lots.

My M10 in the trees missed it's killshot and Stew only needed to roll a 4 to be able to shoot back BUT, he rolled 4x 2's instead. The M10 is given another chance to try and brew up that Big Kat

Completely against the grain, Paul's Easternmost M10 finally manages to pop a Panther! 

With Paul destroying a Panther (See last pic) and my M10 finally managing to kill the Panther in teh Wheatfield we called it a day. In the end, Stew won really. 

This was my first time playing What a Tanker and I really liked the simplicity of the rules set. We had a good discussion on how the game might play in 28mm and ended up agreeing that really, there'd be so little room to manuever at that scale so 15mm was the right choice. The convo then moved on to the new Too Fat Lardies Western rules, What a Cowboy and how both Paul and Stew had Western projects outstanding so maybe in the near future, there might be another meet up where we can see dusty streets, tumbleweeds and hear the sounds of six-shooters?

Lastly, there actually has been a little hobby done recently! No pics as yet, but images of very small, very light pieces of armour might be gracing the  blog in a post in the near future.... Watch this space!

Stay well all, 

- Dai

Five Give Up the Booze - a silly business

Those astute enough to follow events around these parts will see that it’s been a little while since my last post. This is because I’ve been on holiday to visit my sister and her family in Trinidad and soak up “Carnival” whilst I was there. I had a bloody lovely time and saw so much feathered lady-flesh that I’ll have good memories (And plenty of pics, of course)for years to come. :)

Since my return my hands have not been exactly idle at my hobby desk. Whilst nothing’s been finshed, I’ve been gluing and slapping paint about different things.

1. In April I’ll be co-demoing some Regimental Fire & Fury ACW with my mate Stewart and so have started painting up the remainder of my outstanding 15mm Confederate infantry for the day. It’ll be a large game, set to take some 5 or 6 hours (I hope my neck can stand up to that sort of punishment…) with 6 players and we two as GM’s. Stewart has a modified scenario to run through and know’s all the details, I think I’ll just be there to supply Reb’s and my pretty self. No pics yet cos who wants to see boring primed minis with blue trousers? More on these later.

2.  Last year I was lucky enough to win a raffle on Facebook that involved the Bolt Action community. The proceeds went to a lovely chap, Damon Andersen so that he could afford a pricey surgery for his young daughter in the US. The prize ended up being a lovely box from Warlord games that included their new “Band of Brothers” starter set, black set of order dice, the Tank Wars supplement and some cool looking german officer with an SMG. Thus far I’ve put together and primed the German Half-track that came with the Starter Set, but also got to start work on the Hetzer tank hunter that I’d purchased almost a year ago. Project Winter Germans is on it’s way!

Half Track is a re-purposed Pioneer 251/D as shown by the storage bins along the sides. I just liked the look with them, than without. Considering adding a canvas cover over a frame for the passenger area seeing as it'll be a Winter theme'd vehicle. The cork is sporting a German Tank commander, he's just primed ready for when I actually have a tank able to stick him in. I'm thinking a Panzer iii or an 8-Rad might be in my future?

The Panzer 38T-Hetzer tank Hunter is my fav German tank. Ugly little bastard that packed a wollop though suffered terribly from unreliable mechanics and thin armour that barely stopped machinegun fire. Add to that Late War fuel shortages and how awfully cramped these things were inside and it was not a very liked machine. But much like ugly dogs, it really appeals to me. Bit shiny in the pic as it's currently drying from a coat of gloss varnish, prior to decals being added and then weathering. The red barrel is to represent that this tank is not that far from the factory floor - they didn't have time to paint it!

3. Spurred on by this jump-start to my painting mojo, I also started looking at other things, #1 were my old 3^rd Edition Blood Bowl Orcs which got scrubbed clean of that old paint job, mold lines removed and glued to new bases. Also after being tempted to jump in on the new Relic Knights Kickstarter project (And consequently reminded by self that I’d not played the original version in almost 2 years, much less painted more than 98% of the Relic Knights minis I already own…) I pulled out Betty and Lug (To be previewed at a later date) and started base colours on those. Sadly, this led me to discover that my much prized old pot of Blazing Orange had completely dried up! And so very sad, I threw that old horse (Brought all the way from the UK no less) into the bin.

That just leaves my Dark Angels Green remaining from my "old" Citadel paint collection. :(

Some more work was done on the Wintery Eastern Front buildings too, but of course, I forgot to take pics. Again, at a later date. 

Forgive me if I haven't commented on your blogs in a while. I'm trying to make my way through all of the posts backlog, but it's taking a while and those bloody things do pile up QUICK! 

In conclusion, I hope to get a new post up by the weekend so if you're so inclined, watch this space!

Lots to talk about

*WARNING – LONG post ahead!*

Nice to have a 3-day weekend to spend on hobby pursuits! Feel like I got lots done as well.

Sunday I had a game of Chain of Command planned with my mate Stewart and needed to paint up a platoon of 15mm WW2 British infantry along with some infantry support teams (Flame thrower, PIAT Anti-Tank and the like.).  Just tabletop quality paint job as time was of the essence.

Enough for a game of Chain of Command plus some Flames of War vehicles if required. (Please note the sexi freehand star on the bonnet of that jeep. Mad skillz.)

The game itself was a load of fun. Stewart hosted and we got to play on his very nice Western Europe setup. The mission rolled for was plain old “Patrol” – essentially a German Heer infantry platoon and British infantry platoon are sent out ahead of their main forces to see what’s going on in a French village. We didn’t have many resource points to spend on support units and so Stewart picked up an Adjutant to bolster his officer cadre and (If memory serves correctly) a Panzerschreck team. I in turn chose a solitary Universal Carrier with mounted Bren Gun, hoping it’s greater mobility would offer broader options. The rest of the platoons were pretty much mirrored otherwise: Officer, 3x 10-man infantry squads, light mortar team and for me a PIAT team.

In an effort to make a good narrative, I decided my initial deployment during the “Patrol phase” would stem out of the bocage in the lower left of the board. After some maneuvering deployment areas were sorted and we got going. The game was pretty brutal and bloody and for almost the first 5 or 6 phases it was certainly going my way. Then Stewart started wounding or taking out my squad leaders and stalled my carefully laid assault altogether! In the end, it was declared a draw and we decided that after our brief firefight that our bloodied lads sensibly withdrew to call up armoured assets to flush out any remaining enemy or perhaps just shell the hell out of the settlement and level it altogether!

My deployment points in blue.

Stew's own in red.

My initial troops are deployed. (The red box around the lower right house was supposed to be blue.... No idea how it came out red?) I brought on two infantry squads, one on the left, one hunkered down in the house at the crossing and my light mortar team in support in the center. Stewart brought on his own mortar behind the trees top left and his Lieutenant and a 2nd infantry platoon in the center.

My universal carrier comes on and some movement happens. 

(Again with the red box when it should be blue on that house!?) My reserves start arriving, a second squad on the left in support of my push to threaten Stewart's deployment point and my platoon Sergeant to bolster my light mortar. Stewart's own  2nd and 3rd infantry squads come out to play. 

The Brits make a push over the left-most hill! And stall... withering fire injuring squad leaders! All game long my mortar tried to drop rounds on the enemy and scored.... absolutely no casualties. -__-  The Universal Carrier likewise did little to nothing with it's own Bren gun. Wasted resource points there then.

Managing to overcome the injuries to their Corporal, one of the left-most squads rushes the germans and forces them back(!!!), but in turn are left out in the open and now easy prey to the German squad int he center.

Masses of small arms fire is exchanged all over the field of battle. On my right, Stewart's 3rd infantry squad manage to assault my boys in the house at the crossroads! The hand-to-hand fighting is swift and deadly and whilst my brave lads are cut down to a man, they manage to cause enough casualties on the filthy Hun so that they bug out and run back into the woods! At this point we called the game as a draw, with both sides retreating out of the village to lick their wounds and call up support.

Sunday was my opportunity to play my first game with my Bolt Action Soviets on a proper-job Winter themed table and against a late war Winter themed German opponent! My opponent was Craig, a very nice fellow I met through the Sacrament Bolt Action Facebook group and we each slapped down 1000 point forces playing the mission “Heartbreak Ridge” which involved taking and holding objectives with lots of reserves to have to drop into the game as the initial turns of the game came about.

My force was my previously previewed painted Soviets . Craig brought a Lieutenant+adjutant, a  couple infantry squads (One in a half-track transport), Sniper team, Panzerschreck team and a bloody nasty Pather tank that became the MVP of the game.

The game was a swift one with Craig’s dice rolls being the champion of the battle – it just seemed like even though he required 6’s to hit on multiple occasions he regularly rolled 3 or 4 and passing would rolls aplenty! His own Panther tank taking out not only my own tank in the 1^st turn, but also a whole infantry squad and my ZIS-3 Anti-tank gun! My plan was pretty good, but I had to call it in the end after my infantry squads were either eliminated outright or just ran off after taking ugly casualties.  Even with so many losses on my side (I almost killed a mere single squad.) the game almost ended in a draw, but we rolled to see if there was to be a turn 7 and that game Craig the time to pick up a center objective and claim the victory.

A VERY fun game against a cool opponent and on a super cool table.

Craig's lovely set up at the game store.

He started with two infantry squads on the table.

The VERY nice ruined house with the center-most objective inside. This was an impressive and large resin piece, sadly out of print I think.

I start the game with my ZIS-3 AT gun and my Guards infantry squad.

The truck comes on in my first wave dropping off it's passenger cargo of my poor inexperienced squad. 

Those poor green boys would try to get forward but were no match for the output of small arms fire of their German opponents and bogged down in place for almost the whole game.

The Guards squad is tasked with securing the center objective, supported by a BA-64 Armoured Car.

Turn your head sideways (I couldn't get the picture to orient correctly for some reason) and you'll see that this horrible German Panther has taken a nasty shot at my poo T34/85, brewing it up before it even got to do anything! 

These germans had a field day blasting apart my poor inexperienced lads all game long.

W-A-Y back by Craig's elbow, behind the fuzzy log barrier is a Panzerschreck team. I could have sworn I eye-balled the distance between them and where I'd placed the armoured car correctly. Apparently not, an ambush shot took care of my plans. 

The Panther was king of the game. Here it is near center chasing down my poor Tank Riders. 

And..... I quit. With little to nothing left to threaten objectives, what remains of my force retreated. In bad order.

After painting all those 15mm Brit infantry I needed a distraction from tonnes of brown uniforms and so picked up the first of my Project Z miniatures (a Zombie Beast, some sort of large undead creature that came about as part of a scientific experiment or some such). I decided to go with a grey-green scheme for it’s skin as opposed to the sickly-yellow of my sci-fi zombies or yucky-green of my fantasy undead. It’s a really nice sculpt with crisp detail and the only really prominent mold lines were on it’s head (A separate piece to the main body). This mini only took me the span of me watching the new Magnificent 7 film to get done. I kept the scheme deliberately simple so future zombies for the project would end up being as swift to paint up. Kind of looking forward to working on some more!

Crappy yellow lines on the base to represent the middle of the road. They'll do.

Between the above infantry platoon and this zombie I'm already 40-odd minis painted for the year! 

That’s it – next post will feature some 28mm British Commandos I think. And maybe a zombie or two more.

RF&F

On the 27th I'll be playing a multi-player game of Regimental Fire & Fury at Stewart's place, providing the Confederate forces for the day.

According to the scenario that he's devised I'm short a regiment of infantry, so, once more to the brushes my friends!

Command base and a base (Representing roughly a company ingame) of Confederate Zouaves. In this case, they are painted up in the uniform of the Louisiana Tigers. 

Only 6 bases to go! These will also double up nicely for our Longstreet campaign.

After I painted the Zouaves, I quickly decided that one base/company was enough! They took as long to paint as 3 regular Reb' infantry bases! >_<

Also started work on a couple more Soviets - more on those will be posted soon.