Fall-In: The Confession

Its been a few weeks so I can finally try and face up to my lack of restraint at Fall-In.
Plus SWMBO has gone out for a few hours so the coast is clear to take some pics...

"Mistakes were made"

To move through the stages of grief, I could offer rationalisations such as bargains, needs projects planned, past and future, the bad influence of an enthusiastic offspring and the fact that some of this horde arrived by mail and wasn't technically purchased at Fall-In.  Instead, lets just admit that mistakes were made and move onto the shiny.

You can never have enough trees and terrain can you?  I didn't think so either.  The Lad did amusedly note though, that I have perhaps bought more trees than figures in the last few years.  Each day at Fall-In he also teased me about going to go off to buy some more trees because we didn't have enough yet.  Cheeky bugger!

Lovely 15mm terrain for Battlegroup Kursk - by Mark IV Miniatures: https://markiv.company.site/

More Mark IV Miniatures, this time for Fall of the Reich.  These are for the Dux actually! The damaged Cathedral (lower left) is rather spectacular.

6mm terrain for our ECW Project by Monday Knight Productions http://www.mondayknight.com
The big fields are very nice too - they are by Battlefield Terrain Concepts  http://battlefieldterrain.com

Goodies for Flint and Feather, and Muskets and Tomahawks -  British Wilderness Force, 3 packs of the beautiful F&F minis, an Indian long house and a frontier log cabin.  Plus the M&T rulebook and activation cards.

Pulp Figures.  The Lad said he needed Hooded Minions.  Who was I to argue with such logic? Plus if you bought 5 packs, you got a 6th one for free.

More obscure: LAF Post Apoc Russians.  Yep.  But has you seen what Curt did with these minis?
http://analogue-hobbies.blogspot.com/2014/01/from-curt-28mm-post-apocalyptic-neo.html
C'mon, I'm only human!

These goodies, I am delighted to say, were raffle prizes from attending the WWPD podcast - thanks lads!  The MK IVs will be built as early models for service in North Africa.  No plan for the Comets at this stage though

And while I'm confessing, my Strange Aeons KS goodies arrived a month or two ago as well :-)

And that all makes me feel better.  Except that I just remembered we also bought all this stuff (plus more not in the picture)

So in summary - Look at the postage I saved if I had waited to order it all back home in Australia!

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!

Ivans have Landed!

This week I received a delightful package in the mail, courtesy of Steve from the Sound Officer's Call blog (here).  Inside was a wonderfully painted Soviet Command base for my Battlegroup Kursk Soviet force.  I'm really delighted to get such a thoughtful gift.  In fact, I picked up a macro lens for my camera to ensure the pics do it justice :-)

So I'm very pleased to introduce you all to Comrade Commander Stepan Patrovitch, who is destined to command all my Soviet Forces in theatres everywhere! Hard to believe this is a 15mm figure isn't it.

And just in case I ever forget whose generosity brought him to me, this is the underside of the base.  Thanks a lot Steve, very much appreciated.  Another stirling example of the fantastic Blogosphere community we have.

Book Review: KURSK - The Vital 24 Hours

by Will Fowler

I had borrowed this from a library around a year ago, really enjoyed it and knew it had to be on my reference shelf.  Unfortunately out of print (but not for a long time), I figured I'd bide my time and find a cheap second hand copy.  I got a very good used copy this week for the princely sum of 78 cents, about the cost of a single 15mm figure from battlefront, plus $3.50 postage.  What a bargain!

Filled with great maps, pics, first hand accounts and a good operational level narrative.  Great stuff for both military history reading and generating wargaming scenarios though I would have liked some more tactical level maps for the latter purpose.  4 out of 5 stars and I'll be searching for the author's other works on Stalingrad and D-Day.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2204026.KURSK_

Dispatches Issue 2

Iron Fist Publishing has released edition 2 of Dispatches, the periodic e-magazine for its Battkegroup series of rules.
It includes rules for a Slovak Division in BG Blitzkrieg, lots of Q&A/FAQ, and an Ardennes 44 scenario.
Plus its free!  http://ironfistpublishing.com/?page_id=8

Casualties Bonus round

These 15mm figs were my entry for last week's Casualty bonus round in the Painting Challenge.  They are for use with the Battlegroup Kursk rules, which include provision for all sorts of great support troops from line laying communications vehicles to field hospitals.  I made a medic/stretcher bearer unit for both my Russian and German forces, having which makes the Army more resilient as the lads know they'll be looked after if they get hit. 

The German medic cradling the casualty is by Peter Pig.  Its a fantastic sculpt and I just had to buy a pack of these from Mick's Metal Models when I saw them at CanCon in January.   The Russian stretcher party are from the Skytrex WW2 Command decision range.

So with three weeks to go I have a few more entries up my sleeve.  Accordingly, I've upped my points target to 800pts!  Not enough to catch the Dux of course, but a very respectable total I think.

Hopeless

Some of you may recall that at times I have demonstrated a willpower equivalent to the tensile strength of a warm mars bar (an excellent example of which may be found here).  Unable to paint figs for another week waiting for the Painting Challenge to begin has further eroded my convictions.  So this this week after further considering the fun game we recently had (see here) I acquired the rather lovely and impressive Battlegroup Kursk rulebook.  Hmmm, shiny....

I blame you Dux!

Battlegroup Kursk

This week I had the opportunity to play Battlegroup Kursk with the Dux and Ian,and I really enjoyed it.

The fluid, escalatory nature of the game really fits my vision of WW2 combined arms action without it being formulaic.  The meeting engagements built from an empty table, starting with scouts engaging one another etc, and specific national rules make the nuances of C2 different on each side.  Clearly optimal to be played at the 15-20mm scale, it played very nicely and requires one to very carefully consider army building options - make an unbalanced force and you pay dearly by having a fragile, easily routed force which will be outmanoeuvred on the table.

In our game Ian and I commanded a 500 point German force comprising a 222 scout car, PzIVH platoon, a PzGrenadier Platoon in halftracks and a Tiger tank.  Hurtled against us was The Dux riding a company of 10(!) T-34s, some infantry and an SU122 I think it was.  The Germans moved up into the some wheat fields and commenced long range fire which turned out to be completely ineffective.  Alan in the meantime massed his armour, continuously pinned the Tiger, and rushed forward for a point blank duel, knocking out the 222 and a PzIV in exchange for a pair of T-34s as they ran through the German lines.  This seemed to galvanize the Germans who then remembered their ballistics lessons and dispatched four T-34s in quick succession the next turn, effectively breaking the Russian advance.  It was a down to the wire game and Ian and I thought we were off to the gulag until the last moment (when a pair of sequential 'box car' throws proved most timely).  Just goes to show how the tide can so quickly turn.

Tigers are clearly bollocks too - I've fielded 3 now and not scratched an enemy with any of them!  After charging in and making a T-34 crew bail out from a non penetrating flank hit, Hanomags with Pak36 'door knockers' fitted (Sd.Kfz 251/10) are obviously the secret weapon of choice!

BTW The Dux's collection of 15mm WW2 was just inspiring to play with - you can see them here but they are much, much better in real life.

The newly released rules in the series, Fall of the Reich, really interests me but the next installment covering Desert War has a great deal of appeal and is worth waiting for next year.  Its a theatre I know a bit about, but not lots.  I think I would enjoy the shift from big heavy tanks to scout cars and lighter tanks.  Plus the idea of fielding Italian tankettes really appeals to me for some masochistic reason! 

I can see an exciting new Winter '14 project on the horizon!  But for now its Bolt Action time...

Dux-Cam view of the Victors!