Western Desert 1942 and more from this week

Has been a pretty busy week this week lots of hobby time and occasional dashes outside when the rain has stopped. In no particular order……..

Myself and Steve have both been building forces for the western desert 1942 and 1943 and we have been meaning to get them back on the table. Saturday was an opportunity with the weather reasonable enough to setup the bigger shed table to give us as much space as possible. Above the 12x6 foot of desert. No particular historical battle but the Italians would be fighting the British to capture three objectives, the hill in the foreground, the railway station and the small village in the distance.

British Valentines attempt a right flank movement

A battery of 25pounders

British infantry head for the village but the leading trucks are immediate hit at long range throwing the infantry out and pinning them down

In the centre, British Cruiser tanks take immediate fire and get the worse of the fight

Italian tanks cross the railway supported by Semovente assault guns they have weak armour but are armed with powerful guns

The Italians are supported by a German recon unit, and the Italian infantry has made a dash for the railway station, there they come under heavy fire and are heavily pinned down

The Italians push forward, fair to say both sides suffered from some incredible poor dice rolling, both sides on one turn unable to even roll a four with multiple attempts

British heavy Matilda’s move up behind the infantry to assault the village

The valentines are making slow going on the right flank !

Very pleased with the aesthetics of these 15mm tanks in the desert

More Italian infantry approaches the station

The British now attempt a left flank attack as well with a squadron of grants.

British infantry is diverted towards the railway in trucks but these too are knocked out leaving the infantry to struggle across the desert under fire 

Eventually far to much smoke on the British side as the Italians tanks get the better of the combat, the British Bishops eventually knock out Italian antitank guns by the railway station

Perhaps the high (humorous) point of the battle came when one Italian tank squadron managed to roll two blunder double sixes on two consecutive turns causing them to flee the field. Losing my normal decorum the British commander may have let out a small cheer 🙂

Finally the Valentines have made it round the flank but it is really a couple of turns too late

In the centre the tank is tank combat is continuing, but the British are still struggling to make any hits count

The Italian/German air cover attempts to hit the British artillery

Finally the flanks starts to hot up but too late, and even now they struggle to make a decisive break through

In the last throws of the battle the German recon team captures the hill

The railway station is contested 

The village is also contested, but to be fair the Italians have used their numerical superiority to get infantry into both built up areas

The two remaining Grants on the left are now also starting to push forward but it is too late.

All in all the Italians have clearly won the contest the British were really struggling to contest their early capture of the two built up areas. The dice rolling on both sides meant the contest was less decisive than expected. This is the first time we have played with the collection on this scale and we learnt something’s for next time. With fairly balanced forces and open terrain you inevitably get a fairly static battle both sides exchanging long range fire. We decided one option for the future is to amend the rules to make it harder to hit moving targets this would encourage a more mobile battle. It was however, fun to get the collection on the table.

Some painting from this week…

The 8th Army were painted up just in time for the battle, these are forged in battle figures, they are really nice to paint but as the focus is on tanks I’m not sure I would want/need any more ?

A final few Tallarn command figures, these chap came with a broken sword but luckily it matched well with a plastic sword in my bits box

The Imperial standard bearer to match in with other figures in the Tallarn force

This week also saw the next in our Konigsberg Chain of Command Campaign. 

This time the Germans are attacking across a very crowded battlefield with woods and buidlings. The challenge is the Russians don’t need to attack but merely have to defend, so despite loses from pervious battles the Germans have to attack

We tried a mortar battery but really this caused as many problems for the Germans as for the Russian defenders

The Germans give it their best with their pushing forward through the trees on both flanks, but they can’t quite get to grips with the Russian defenders, who concentrate their fire on anybody putting their head out !

Eventually the PzIV makes it through the woods pushing the defenders back but it gets into a deadly duel with a Russian T34.

A critical failed dice roll (story of the week) failing to get a 7 with two dice to hit the advancing T34 the PzIV is knocked out ! The Germans dug in for another couple of turns but really the battle was over, with a fourth campaign battle to take place before possible reinforcements they need to at least try and limit their casualties. A challenging game for the Germans attacking is proving very difficult in CoC !

Finally another outdoor shop from earlier in the week

The weather was very changeable though with blustery showers 😅

That’s it for this week, I have been busy painting more french cavalry for a Napoleonic game hopefully on Wednesday

Thanks as always for checking by 👍 Matt

Portuguese Infantry and the Bishops

My painting this week…….

The warlord British starter army comes with a Portuguese infantry unit to support the British brigade, Although I have picked up a second unit to complete sometime as well. Certainly I will be building a Portuguese brigade at some point.

Nice figures and relatively easy to paint. I have used one of the flags which came in the box these are the 12th with Light Blue cuffs. I gave these the older shako, like many armies they seemed to have been in transition during the Peninsular War, changing Borg shako and uniforms. I have based these in sixes rather than fours, I am still experimenting a bit with basing.

For the 24 man unit the six man basing allows a better looking column of March formation, the down side being the command figures can’t get in the centre when in line or attack formation. Hey ho the challenges we wargamers face ? Next will probably be some British riflemen. My enthusiasm for Napoleonics is very high at the moment 🙂 Here they are marching through Sicily Spoiler alert for our next game !

I have also painted up the converted Bishops which have come out just fine considering they are made of spare bits 

That’s it for now hopefully another game in Sicily soon.

Matt 😀

Somewhere in the Western Desert WW2

After discussing the potential for a WW2 Western Desert project at the back end of last year myself and Steve were in a position to field our developing forces this Friday for the first time. 

First up I took a quick snap of the British force so far, not so much to add to this, possibly some Matilda’s and some infantry. I already have the anti-tank guns and carriers to build and paint. For a first battle we picked a simple encounter scenario without worrying too much about the balance of the forces. This meant some of the British had to sit out this first battle as they currently out number the Italians. We are also developing the rules we want to use most likely Bolt action based, but we came up with a number of ideas for future games.

We gave the British a minefield, both sides would have two objectives close to the enemy baseline.

The British right flank

The Italians effectively have two armoured platoons, supported but some 88’s and antitank guns

The British 25lbrs open up at long range against the 88’s.

Italians drive down the British right and immediately knock out the leading valentine

On the left the Honeys get into hull down position

On the right two Italian vehicles have been immobilised but two Valentines are already burning

Two Grants have been ordered to close the gap but another Valentine is now brewed up !

Fierce fighting over the high ground

But the Italians on the left are getting out gunned

Just as the Italians are about the break through on the British right an activation blunder drives them back 👍

The British now make a bid for the objective but still have to cope with the remaining 88 !

Eventually the British squeak a minor victory

But all across the desert tanks are burning……

A fun first run out and we have some good ideas for the rules we want. Looking forward to completing the force and playing them on a larger table where they have more space to manoeuvre. We’ll be looking out for a few bits at York over the weekend 👍

Thanks as always for checking in

Matt