Type B Imperial Japanese Army Rifle Platoon (1941-42)

I have not had a whole lot of time for wargaming activities recently, quite busy at work and getting things organized in the house. I particularly hate the summer, so f...ing hot, it really makes me quite lethargic!

While in Montreal, I did finish off my Type B IJA Rifle platoon for Chain of Command. I had done 2 LMG squadrons and a couple of supports, but I still had the grenade launcher squadron, a 3rd LMG squadron as well as a number of supports to do. I finally got the basing done today and have had a chance to take a few photos.

The force is quite complete, I would like to get a Ha Go Tank, as well as some engineers but that is about it.

A Mixture of Eureka and Warmodelling figures as well as some Waterloo 1815 1/72 Plastics

Warmodelling LMG Squad

Eureka LMG Squad

Mixed Eureka-Warmodelling LMG Squad

Grenade Launcher Squad, Eureka on the sides and Warmodelling in the middle.

Type 97 20mm ATR Team in front, with a Sniper Team, a chappies with a Rifle Grenade and AT Suicide Plunge Mine, Tank Hunter Team and a Type 94 Tankette in the back row from left to right. The Rifle Grenade and Lunge Mine figures are from the Waterloo 1815 Plastic 1/72 plastic range.

From left to right; a Type 92 MMG Team, Type 97 Chi-Ha Medium Tank and a  7cm Type  92 Infantry Gun with a JL from the Waterloo 1815 Range. Little more slender than the metals but no problem mixing in.

The 1941-42 IJA List for CoC

A still have two squads of USMC as well as a Raider squad to paint to complete the opposing army for the IJA, but thankfully they are almost done and should get posted within in the next month.

The Jungle

I started putting this terrain together about 6 months ago, it certainly is the biggest terrain project I have taken on and the most difficult. I really am not a big planner, I wanted something that I could use for an early pacific island campaign (Guadalcanal) and also something maybe in Malaya in case I wanted to paint up some Australians. Aside from that general want, there was no plan. I see a piece of terrain and say that will work and I then have to fit it in.

I had a general sense that I wanted a beach, a jungle and something to attack. I knew that unlike Normandy or Finland this would have to be very dense. Line of sight would be continuously blocked, but I wanted winding pathways through the jungle. I also wanted lots of different types of terrain. Chain of Command is a terrific game and it caters well to varying terrain.  The TFL 2015 Xmas Special had a superb Malaya campaign. The author Len Tracey had done a fantastic job of putting together some special rules for fighting in jungles. Terrain types included were primary and secondary jungle, kunai grass, bamboo copses, swamps, plantations and jungle huts. For each of these types of terrain, he defines movement and LOS, as well as cover. This information gave me a general outline for planning as I went along.

6x4 terrain with beach in foreground and the start of some hills in the farground

I was tempted to put in some sea but resisted the urge

A lot of the terrain pieces were designed to be affixed to tiles of mdf. Unfortunately it is impossible to get thin mdf in the US, Simon of Big Red Bat Cave was great in suppling me with nice pieces from the UK.

The mat is the from Cigar Box and is their dessert  one. I used used liquid wood to give the tiles texture adding some small rocks and sand. The palm trees on the beach are from Pegasus but they are enormously expensive. After buying 6 of them, I decided to do some searching on the internet and found that you can get excellent trees from China on eBay at a fraction of the cost of suppliers in the US and Europe. Shipping is very inexpensive. I believe I used 2 different types of palm trees, bamboo trees, 3 different types of regular trees, swamp plants and bushes from Chinese suppliers.

The entrance to the bamboo forest. Holes were drilled into the mdf and I think I used 600 bamboo plants 

A jungle hut from Sarissa Precision. This hut is from their 15 mm line, a little small for 20 mm gaming but it will do. 

Coconut Plantation, this is one type of palm from China

The jungle grass behind the hut is from Gale Force Nine Battle Front line. In order to get the plastic look off all the trees and plants they were dipped in a brown wash and allowed to dry. I then would give a quick mist of a bright green spray followed by a dusting of a bright yellow spray. It worked well. The trunks of all the trees were dry brushed with an ivory

Another hut this time from Airfix. I am not sure where I got the sand bunker from. 

A watchtower also from Sarissa.

A hooch that came in the Airfix kit

The hill is dry brushed 2" styrofoam. The ground cover is of two types, some sort of moss rolls from a craft shop and then some lichen from Woodland Scenics. This worked well to blend the mdf terrain pieces into the mat

Three different tree types from China. The tree bases are from Adventure Terrain and are magnetized. Very clever. The tre bases will represent primary jungle for gaming. 

I wish I could have found some rubber trees as well, but a copra plantation is good.

This represents secondly jungle with heavy ground cover

Kunai grass from Products for Wargamers

The water features are from WorldSmith Industries

Two part epoxy resin was used for the water, maybe a little shiny

USMC Patrol

A Stuart

30 cal MMG

USMC Flamethrower team heading into the bamboo

Forward Observer

Mortar Team on the beach

50 cal HMG Team

Japanese MMG team with LMG squad heading off on patrol

Into the Jungle!

Chi-Ha

Well this was a lot of work, but I am happy how it came out. I still have to decide how I am going to terrain the paths, I will probably just lay down some reddish sand. Still have 2 more sections each of USMC and Japanese to paint as well.

Attack on an Outpost: Pacific 1942

This has been a bit of a weird week for gaming, I had games hopefully lined up for today and this Saturday but they both fell through. My son happened to be home and when asked agreed to give my new 1941 Pacific troops ago. I still have 3 squads of USMC to paint as well as 2 squads of Japanese and some supports to do, but the leadership and 2 squads of each as well as some limited support were available so we said why not.

Still a lot of work to do on terrain as you can see below the board is pretty sparse for jungle but we did have enough to set down to block LOS and give cover. We decided to play scenario 6 with the USMC attacking a Japanese jungle outpost.

You can see the Japanese outpost to the left foreground. 

Patrol phase, it is only my son's 2nd game, he still finds this a bit of a puzzle. He played the USMC and I played the Japanese. He diced 9 on supports so got 11 supports (2 point differential between Platoon Force Rating) so I ended up getting 5 points of supports. We both had a starting Morale of 9. Simon took a Mortar team, 50cal HMG, Bazooka and a Corpsman. I took a MMG and 1 entrenchment.

USMC JOP's

Japanese JOP's

Japanese Squad and MMG.

I get a double 6 and decide to attack.

The positions of the troops and their movements through out the game.

Final Combat, the USMC were routed.

We got in maybe 12-14 phases in 1 turn with 3-4 double 6's on each side and 2 CoC Dice each, so there was lots of play. I was a little luckier with my dice and was able to beat Simon's FM down to 4 so he withdrew, it took about 60 minutes so a nice little game. Time to work on more terrain.