Sherman progress and some games

Hi folks,

This week has been spent doing a couple of things. First up, I set up a Facebook account for my blog. You can click the link on the right in order to follow me there, where I am trying to give a few more regular updates, etc.

I also continued to work on my 144 RAC Sherman I's and some of my Polish Sherman V's.

I mixed some 'Magic Wash' up. Seems to be working ok, but needs to be mixed with ink before adding to the mini's as I've not got the shade right yet.

And lastly, I played 2 games! One was even Flames of War! The other was a 6mm battle between York and Lancaster (?) during some English civil war or other. This game was the first at a club being set up by Yorkie, over and 'Little Legions' in a village hall about 45 mins from me. It was the inaugural meeting tonight and we managed to get 6 of us there for a multi player game. Some lovely mini's, good banter and a pretty quick playing game. Here's some pics:

All set up, we were on the left - no idea which army we were! Each player had two 'battles'. The hill to our North split our forces a little.

The enemy line! Some great looking units.

Our battle line - the hill that split our forces can be seen in the distance.

Some progress in the first few turns, with my battle heading forwards and getting some lucky shots in, causing one enemy unit to fall back. on the other flank the close combat had already started! A wood meant that only one part of that battle could engage at first. Thankfully they held their own!

Aftermath of the battle in the north - one enemy and one friendly unit lost, with another enemy unit shaken. My own force carefully deployed just out of initiative charge range...

Getting ready for the big clash!

Exchanging arrow fire - Thankfully Yorkie's dice were poor and he was just out of charge range.

The results of my own charge. By this point my allies had almost cleared the board, with only one other enemy unit still active. The two to my front were charged, with one combat resulting in a draw and the other resulting in a smashes enemy unit after a turn or so.

The rest our forces preparing to tackle the single remaining enemy unit (thats being pointed at). Bottom right my chaps smashed the shattered and disordered enemy unit, swept round the hill and took out the guns and lined up to charge the other enemy unit (locked in combat with my unit) in the rear. Thankfully a very close tie resulted in morale checks for both our engaged units - I passed, he did not and his unit routed. Victory!

On Wednesday I was invited round to Yorkies house for a quick game of Flames of War. I picked two 1000pt infantry lists and we used my figures (although his own are stunning). I only took one picture of the game, but it resulted in a Highland victory.

Magic Wash wise, the concotion looks like this:

But I feel it needs to be even darker. It's not so dark as it looks when poured out to be painted on. Some drops of Army Painter Strong Tone wash in the mix sorted it out ready to go onto my bunkers and Shermans:

German MG bunkers, resins casts. I've since put the static grass on them so they should be finished this weekend.

This was them after a wash of the Magic Wash mixture and a drybrush of Russian Uniform. More highlighting still required!

On top of all this, last weekend I got all my Polish Shermans primed using the Team Yankee Soviet Armour spray. The Sherman I's were hand primed and painted. I have to say this spray was (or seems) very close to Vallejo Russian Uniform, although I did quickly hand paint a coat of Russian Uniform onto them as well. One full tin and a bit of another used to cover all the Polish Shermans:

(less the 4 on the painting table)

So yeah, constructive week, I seem to be making good progress and the club should hopefully be running every two weeks. It is a 45 min drive but that's not too bad - may be quicker once the roadworks are gone! Fingers crossed this leads to some more gaming.

AAR: 51st HD vs Hermann Göring Fallschirmpanzerdivision - Part 1

I had the chance to get along to the Carluke and Law Wargames club on Saturday for the first time in a few months. I've been slowly chipping away painting wise (slow progress is still progress!) but feel I sometimes need to play some games to get me actually going. We agreed on 1750pts.

One issue I had was building an army that included unpainted mini's (to spur me on to paint them) - mainly because I've very few things that are assembled and unpainted. I didn't feel I had the time to properly prepare and assemble anything else. As such, I decided to use stand in's - with YD's permission.

I used two Churchill AVsRE to represent two Churchill Crocodiles and 4 x 25-pdrs to represent some 4.2" Mortars. I also cracked open the Forged in Battle Loyds Carriers that are next in the painting queue and a blister pack of Wasp Universal Carriers. 

My army list ended up looking like this:

Platoon	Qty	Unit	Points
Headquarters
Rifle Company HQ (51st)  p.143	1 1 1	Cmd Rifle team Cmd Rifle Bagpiper team Troop Carrier	40
Combat Platoons
Rifle Platoon (51st)  p.144	1 1 1 6 2	Cmd Rifle/MG team PIAT team Light Mortar team Rifle/MG team Defrocked Priest APC	160
Rifle Platoon (51st)  p.144	1 1 1 6 2	Cmd Rifle/MG team PIAT team Light Mortar team Rifle/MG team Defrocked Priest APC	160
Rifle Platoon (51st)  p.144	1 1 1 6 2	Cmd Rifle/MG team PIAT team Light Mortar team Rifle/MG team Defrocked Priest APC	160
Warrior
Captain John Treleaven (51st)  Fearless  Veteran   p.58	1	Captain John Treleaven	80
Weapons Platoons
Carrier Platoon (51st)  p.145	3	Wasp Carrier	105
Pioneer Platoon (51st)  p.146	1 1 3 2	Cmd Pioneer Rifle team 15 cwt truck Pioneer Rifle team Jeep with trailer	80
Mortar Platoon (51st)  p.147	1 1 3 6 6	Cmd Rifle team Troop Carrier Observer Rifle team ML 3" Mk II Mortar Mortar Carrier	160
Brigade Support
Machine-gun Platoon (51st)  p.149	1 1 4 4	Cmd Rifle team Troop Carrier Vickers HMG MMG Carrier	155
Heavy Mortar Platoon (51st)  p.149	1 1 2 4 4	Cmd Rifle team Observer Rifle team Troop Carrier ML 4.2" Mortar Loyd Carrier	140
Support Platoons
Crocodile Tank Platoon  Confident  Trained   p.157	2	Churchill Crocodile	265
Infantry Anti-tank Platoon, Royal Artillery (51st)  p.154	1 1 4 4	Cmd Rifle team Troop Carrier OQF 17 pdr gun M5 half-track	230

A very flamey list! I really did try to go for an assault list to try and get out of my usual play style. I figured the inclusion of Captain John Treleaven would let me have a platoon that passed motivation on a 3+ - a useful inclusion for my Reluctant Vet Jocks.

The three infantry platoons would give me staying power. The mortars to provide smoke and pinning. Pioneers for extra assault oomph (and another flamethrower!!!). Machine guns because I like the dinky little MG carriers (and their pinning bombardment ability) and 17-pdrs because the only other anti tank capability on the list consisted of some PIAT's and the 75mm guns on the Crocodiles. I included the half-tracks and transports for all the platoons as I didn't know what mission we would be playing. And the mobility element has been part of the Operation Totalize theme for my Jocks from the beginning.

Young David went for a list from Fortress Italy:

From memory this included 2 artillery guns (105's?) + spotter and command, 2 PaK 40's, 4 Panzer IV's (2 long and 2 short barreled). a Tiger, two SPG half tracks, three Infantry platoons and a 2 gun MG42 platoon. Half-tracks for the HQ platoon and for one of the infantry platoons were also included but not in the pictures.  

Apologies for the picture quality - they don't don YD's figures justice! I was taking the pics on my Ipad for the first time and from a funny angle - resulting in them being upside down and with my shadow on them.

We set up a quick table and rolled for a mission. We ended up with Fighting Withdrawal, and as I had the Crocodiles in my list I was on 'Always Attacks' and YD was defending.

YD set up first and elected not to have anything in ambush. I deployed second - feeling a little cramped and aware that the dreaded FoW parking lot game table was becoming apparent.

My plan was to aim for the objective on my right, using the hill and other cover to close before flaming my troops in. Using the mortars for pinning and smoke are required. On the left I would keep the pressure on with an infantry platoon and the MG platoon, hold the center with an infantry platoon that could also go right should I need them... and generally use the 17-pdrs to screen as much of my force as possible while dealing with the dreaded big cat!

And the plan (sorry, it's just using MS paint and isn't very clear):

But as part 2 will reveal... no plan survives first contact with the enemy!

Carluke Club 9/11/13

I took a few pictures at the club yesterday and didn't get around to posting anything last night. Today in the UK is Remembrance Sunday. I spent my two minutes in silence at 11am and stopped in the street to watch the pipers and parade of local organisations (scouts, Guides, etc) heading to the memorial hall in Lanark. I thought a lot about whether to post or not today, the connection between war and playing war games is a close and sensitive one. I'm the first to say I enjoy playing the games I play - but I would also say that war itself is abhorrent.

My FoW collection is for me a memorial to my Grandfather - a Sherman tank driver with 144th Regiment, Royal Armored Corps. He served (and survived) in the NWE theatre from as far as I know the regiment landing just after d-day till the occupation of Germany and then onto Italy before being De-mobbed.

In my living room I have his ID tags, complete with the original string worn smooth where he had it around his neck.

My interest in warfare, as I have gotten older, has moved away from awe of the kit to awe of the men. My knowledge and my search for knowledge is not to me glorification of war, but glorification of those men (and women) that died and that survived. As a society we say 'Lest we forget', but as individuals we do forget. Or we never take the time to learn just how bad it was - and is for those that are currently serving or surviving having served.

So I thought about whether, today, to post a blog about a game that was played yesterday. But at the end of the day, it is a game. Playing it is no dishonour to the gamers, and no dishonour to the fallen. So posting pictured of it shouldn't be either.

Apologies for the rambling justification, and apologies if you do think that posting today was disrespectful. I can assure you, no disrespect was intended.

Anyway, first up some pics of the Napoleonic multi player game that was going on. French models were provided by Auld Davey, British by John P. I only stopped by the game from time to time to take some pictures, so no battler report. I gather the French were attacking a British held ridge line, and that the British won.

Just to say, as these games are multi player they are largely collaborative. If you wanted to play then some forces would be assigned to you and everyone would be happy to help you play the game. One of the great things about the club.

French on the right, Brits on the left.

Carluke club ACW 2/11/13

Another visit to the club this Saturday and a large game of Johnny Reb in 15mm. There were 7 of us playing (with a quick visit from 2 others) with the southern forces attacking and the northerners defending. The game ended with what could be described as a draw - with the northerners holding the farm and my southern regiments about to take the hill top.

Auld Davey... ;) ... provided the majority of the forces, with additional reinforcements coming from Johns collection. Davey was happily commanding his recently painted Texan regiments.

Our forces on the far left got held up by some superhuman sharpshooters (far too over rated unit compared to everything else in the rules set), while me and YD were attacking up a hill onto forces defending a ridge line.

The last two photos above were my forces before and after I revised my deployment. One of the nice things about these games have been that they take me out of my comfort zone. I'm normally much more inclined to defend than attack, and looking at the defenses I was pretty sure we were onto a hiding. Luckily, on the first turn YD's artillery hit one of the central defending units on the ridge line (zoaves?). They failed their first morale check and ran off the hill, taking one of the other units beside them with them. Me and YD aimed for the hole and went forward.

Meanwhile our left was still bogged down by some of these superhuman sharpshooters (ignore cover, save better than space marines, move in any direction, etc, etc).

As me and YD went forward, the union troops began to rally and redeploy to cover the hole in their line. I decided to put pressure on and shield YD's brigades from the right as they went forward. I was aided by John rolling lots of double 1's in shooting and Dave beside him concentrating too much on YD and ignoring what my units were doing.

As the game progressed, more southern brigades arrived to back up the assault.

My forces closing in and pinning down Johns units. One of our objectives was the T junction of fences on the hill top. My leading regiments were taking a pounding. One was broken and ran off, the other staggered and needed to be disengaged to stop me losing it.

A little experiment with a panoramic shot.

A good game, we did much better on the attack than I thought we would. It was good to push myself in a situation I wasn't comfortable with, and it's good to learn to fight that urge to 'just f*ck it' and charge. YD seemed to have the same idea and we slogged it out in the firefights and gradually pushed hard in the centre. By the final turn I had a charge lined up on the T junction, but time ran out. A good laugh with some great banter, and an example of how the club can support big games for people that don't know the rules (like me and auld davey... =D ).