A Rare Victory at Glucken Ridge

   I played a game of Team Yankee a few weeks ago with my friends at this local club called Board and Brew. I say "local" but it's a good 30 miles from my house, forty five minutes with traffic on a good day. Anyway, it's a pretty good place with plenty of tables and they have beer. So its good.

   I played a fellow I have known for several years but rarely get to see, named Anthony. I was his first opponent ever in Flames of War. He plays Italians, I play Indian Army British. Anyway, in this game, I played a Czech Force with Soviet allies and he ran an American force.

Soviet T-64s advance on the left flank - daring the Yankees in their flashy M1s to attempt to do something about it. One Hero of the Soviet Union is made.

Minefields slow the Czech armoured advance, but a few turns of rocket artillery have softened up the American infantry defenders and the T-72M assault drives them from their foxholes.

All of my scouts are killed. Because I stupided. And my infantry never disembarked.

Beyond the trees in the background to the left, T-64s keep reinforcing M1s occupied.

Burning platoon of M1 Abrams. A sight sure to please any Warsaw Pact player.

In fact, I got very lucky and took them all out in one turn.

   In the end, I won by pushing the American infantry off the objective. The Americans did destroy enough of my units to make it a 5-2 victory rather than a 6-1 overwhelming victory. But I will take it! Anthony was a great sport about it all and a lot of fun to take on as an opponent.

Finished Minefields

 Here's the finished product: a regulation size minefield for Team Yankee.

With the token, on a Cigar Box Battle Mat

WARPAC Reinforcements Painted!

   In what may be record time for me, I completed three boxes of Soviet/Warsaw Pact reinforcements that I received over the past couple of weeks. Also, I finally finished up the basic paint on the BRDM-2 hulls. These make great, cheap recon units with the Spearhead rule which effectively expands your deployment zone in Team Yankee.

Good shot of the Gophers

BRDM-2s

I have had these for a while but never finished them. Now they are done!

As a bonus, I can put the missile turrets from the Gophers on two of them and proxy them as Gaskins. It's not an exact match, but it's good enough to get the idea across.

Air Defense Artillery

SA-13 Strela-10 "Gophers" on the left, ZSU-23-4 "Shilkas" center

All the Reinforcements together.

Acacia Heavy SP Artillery in rear.

Warsaw Pact Reinforcements Arrived

   Just in time to hit the battlefield a week or two after the end of our Firestorm Campaign... but they are here.

   I just got some air defense systems and some heavy artillery support. The ADA comes in the form of a pair of ZSU-23-4 "Shilkas" and SA-13 "Gopher" missile tracks. The Artillery is a trio (battery) of 2S3 Acacias.

SA-13 "Gopher" (NATO designation)

9K35 Strela-10 (Pact)

2S3 "Acacia"

SO-152 Akatsiya

ZSU-23-4 "Shilka"

Named for the battery of four 23mm cannon... tricksy Russians!

   Now if I can just get them painted... but I think I have come across a quick paint solution for Soviet vehicles, which, let's face it, don't have the most difficult paint scheme of solid green. I'm trying it out on some BM-21 Hail MRLS trucks and a battery of Czech DANA SP guns. Wish me luck.

Little Tiny Troopers (6mm OGRE Infantry)

   I finally got a bit of work done on a bunch of little guys. I still have three stands (9 figures) to finish off, but that's just waiting for some glue to dry. These are all the plastic battle-suited infantry from the new box set 1 of OGRE Miniatures. I may eventually get another box set so that I can do stands of two or single figures to model attrition, but for now I plan to use casualty caps. I'd also like to get some to set up as Heavy Weapons squads, but I will need some sort of weapon for that...

   I painted them up as members of a NeoSoviet Paneuropean Motor Rifle Division. They have GEV-PCs to go with them, and some armour in the form of Heavy Tanks and Mobile Howitzers. I think I have already posted photos of those. If not, I can always dig them out and snap a few.

  I intentionally modeled each cluster of squads on different sorts of terrain, just for fun. The one group that hasn't been done is the urban set, because I was waiting for the glue to dry on the rubble. The hexes I used to base them are 1" across the flats, IIRC. I got them from Litko, 3mm thick. I use the same for most of the smaller vehicles.

"Swampy" - (3x3 bases)

I am going to put some gloss on the water once the dullcote dries

Plains/Grassland/Forest - generic (5x3 bases)

"Farm" I modeled little crop rows (3x3 bases)

Also, you can see a piece of Frostgrave terrain (the grate)

"Urban" (3x3 bases)

Once the glue dries on the rubble, a quick bit of paint on it and these nine will be done as well.

   I left a bit of space in white on the backs of the bases to make notes like unit, Attack Strength, Range, Defense Strength, and Move. I will add those when my printer decides to act right again.

Plans for 2019

   As we near the end of another year, I think it's a good idea for me to look forward to the year to come. I am hoping that with a plan I will perhaps stay more focused and therefore be more successful in finishing some projects so that I can play the games!

   First is to finish off a project that I thought I already had done. That's the 15mm Spanish Civil War force that I built for Spain in Flames. I am doing the Nationalist Carlists, the requetes. What do I need to do to finish this up? Not too much, really.

• Paint the Fiat Chirri biplane.
• Paint about three platoon command bases for the machineguns, mortars, and AT guns
• Consider a small armoured contingent, of perhaps three to five PzKW Is.
• Get a few Mediterranean terrain pieces. Battlefront's Italian houses will work fine.

   The second project to work on is Frostgrave. I bought a couple of wizards in November of 2017. I just bought a box of the plastic soldiers.

• Paint the wizards and apprentices. (4)
• Assemble and paint the soldiers.(20)
• Obtain and paint objective/treasure markers.
• Obtain terrain. I have a little bit, but more is needed. This is probably the hardest task for this project, though I already have a battlemat from Cigar Box Battle Mats.

   The third new project is a SAGA 2 Viking force. I am going to just do 4 points this year.

• Obtain and paint minis - about 25 
• Obtain terrain. I'm thinking a few 4-Ground Viking buildings will fit the bill well.

   Next, I want to finish off my Soviet Team Yankee forces. It's pretty much all vehicles.

• Finish 4x BDRMs
• Finish BMP-1 OP
• 10x BMP-2s
• 3x DANA SP Guns
• 3x Carnation or Acacias
• 2x Shilka AAA
• 4x SA-13 Gophers

   Then there are the few odds and ends for my Flames of War DAK and 8th Army...

• 4x Light AA half tracks
• 4x BOFORs 40mm
• Some sort of extra tanks for the Brits. Crusaders, maybe.

   Finally, I want to get my VBCW forces into a game!

• Terrain. Primary need for this to happen.

   Well, that's all. I think that's a pretty ambitious list for me, actually. I'm hoping to do the terrain as table ready as I can get it.

Victory at Last!

   Last Wednesday I went up to the north side of town - that's a 90 minute drive if you're not familiar with Houston's size and traffic - to play a game of Team Yankee with my newly painted Soviet T-64 Battalion. I still had to borrow a few bits, but my T-64s and my infantry were on the battlefield for the first time! My friend Jim ran his East Germans alongside me, a BTR-60 Panzergrenadier company with T-55s in support.

   And we won! The Warsaw Pact forces held the objective strongly with a weakened  American Marine infantry force trying to take it away. This was unlikely to succeed in the face of an overwhelming number of East German and Soviet infantry stands, already dug in, and with supporting fire power from their BMP and BTR transports. We called the game for time, at a 4-3 victory for the Soviets (we had lost three platoons of tanks and one of ZSU-23-4 Shilkas).

Starting positions for WarPac forces

Using Spearhead special ability, the East Germans deploy into woods overlooking the objective. In turn one, they will move to cover it. Unfortunately, in their hurry to the front, they forgot their shovels and it wasn't until turn four that they finally dug in.

T-64s advance into contact. Cowardly American Dragon missiles are hiding behind the hedgeline there. They would survive the battle, the T-64s did not.

With two of their tanks burning, and one bailed out, the remaining T-64 abandons the battlefield. His bailed out comrade joins him in cowardly flight. Subordination by Yankee agents is suspected. The battalion political officer will be having a short discussion with those tank commanders, and a demonstration of Morale Rule Makarov.

Lots of WarPac parked on the objective. My BMP-2s have not dismounted their infantry yet.

   Before fleeing, my T-64s did manage to take an upgraded Abrams tanks out of the game. It should have been all three, but... my dice did what my dice do, and that is fail me miserably when shooting, and our opponent, Bryce, made a lucky Morale save when I had his second tank bailed out. The second platoon died to a tank, earning a (posthumous) Hero of the Soviet Union for the platoon commander.

Pledge Update - I'm winning!

   It's hard to believe it, but I am actually ahead on my figure count. Not on my vehicles, but I will start really working on that soon, with my OGRE miniatures. What has really made the difference is finishing off an entire Soviet Motor Rifle Company of infantry, including support weapons.

1x Command Stand, 3 figures (officer, radioman, other)

9x RPG-7 Stands, 18 figures (9x RPG-7 gunner, 9x assistant)

10x AK-47 Stands, 40 figures (5x NCO, 5x RPK LMG, 30x AK-47)

1x SA-7 "Grail" Stand, 6 figures (3x SA-7 gunners, 3x assistants)

2x PKM MG Stands, 12 figures (6x PKM gunners, 6x assistants)

  I have almost finished the first five T-64s as well. I will probably end up with about 12 or 15 of these in the end.

Moving Blues

We are in the process of moving, so everything is packed away. But, once I get unpacked, I have a lot of neat stuff to share, I promise. So, sorry about the total lack of updates over the past five or six weeks. There just hasn't been much time for doing anything fun and less time to write about it. Heck, I just barely have internet service set up in the new house now. Thanks Comcast, you suck.

I did manage to get in a a day of Team Yankee back in February, where I played in two games. I lost both, naturally... but they were close, and I would have won the second game if we hadn't run out of time before my victory conditions were met (we had to call it at end of turn 4, I had to hold an objective at the end of turn 6). I have the photos on my phone. Which died a horrible death yesterday, naturally. I am supposed to be getting a new phone tomorrow, and maybe - maybe! - I can save some of the stuff on the old phone. I hope so.

I will say that I have gotten into very deep trouble with regards to the Pledge. I bought two boxes of Yuri's Wolves tanks for Team Yankee. That's ten T-64s and four BMPs. I also got a Soviet Motor Rifle Company. That's 79 infantry figures. And I ordered a set of the glow-in-the-dark Ogre Miniatures. The post office then lost them somewhere after putting them on a truck in my town. Grrrr... But I ordered some replacements. That's another, um... 43 vehicles. So I will update that counter.

And none of the terrain I have been buying should count against the Pledge, since it's all ready to play. Battlefield in a Box... lots of it. Like three sets of Modern Roads, Modern Road expansion, the Manor House, the Estate House, the Cobblestone Squares, the House Extensions, two Apartment Blocks, a Factory, a Department store, two oil tank sets, a Petrol Station, a box of the garages, another Desert Administration Building, Ruined Desert Houses, Desert Sandbag markers, the Overpass, a set of Carparks, and two Fast Food Restaurants (I am going to repaint one to be a Waffle House). I think that's it, so far. I want more apartments, some billboard signage, and at least one more Factory with the added floor that you have to order direct from Battlefront. I may get two. I think they make good office buildings.

Yellow and black roof, some signage... Waffle House

Plus... in the near future I will have photos of my new custom gaming tables and the painted gaming area... and an announcement hopefully in early April... So stay tuned, all 70-ish of you, and please share this info.