Still still alive!

Hey folks,

Despite my previous good intentions, blogging got away from me again. That's not to say I haven't been busy with various things, just rather lax about showing them off anywhere other than on social media. Even then, I've taken more to Instagram than Facebook.  

I'll go through some of the hobby related things I've done since October last year. 

In November, I did a bit of gaming in Martinc's new pad, using his 10mm figures. Austrians via Prussians (pre-napoleonic). 

I went on to paint a couple of character models for my Crimson Fists - a Techpriest and a Librarian. 

In the same month, we managed to have our 5th and final D-Day game, with a scenario depicting Omaha Beach. I remember this one played pretty quickly. DaveD organised the terrain, giving us some nice high bluffs to attack. The defences were laid out as per the various maps, etc. By the end of the game, the German defences had been breached and one of the draws opened for armour. 

From all the games, we established that despite the casualties in the initial waves, the allies will always win. The Germans are just too thin on the ground, and while their defences are a force multiplier, once they are outmanoeuvred, they are easy to mop up. We also found, unsurprisingly, that the Brits and their specialist armour had an easier time clearing and getting through defences. Out of all the games played, though, the Canadian beach scenario was the bloodiest and hardest fought. We hope to revisit that game in the future. 

November also featured the local wargames show, organised by Pendraken. This was at a new venue, which worked well. We put on a 7 Days to the Rhine game, which was a Soviet airborne assault on an airstrip. 

December was a quiet one, painting-wise. I managed to finish another squad for my Crimson Fists (Eradicators?) and repaint the Impulsor APC.

In January, I finished my Crimson Fist jump assault squad. 

And played some Blucher using StiG's fantastic 6mm Napoleonic collection. 

February had me working on a mix of models. I cleared my painting shelf of the Necromunda lurkers from last year (then added more). 

Then I (finally) got all my defrocked priests finished - 14 in total. These are the stack of Battlefront resin and metal 15mm models I'd had in my lead pile for waaaay too many years. I also painted a couple of cut-down Morris trucks, as transport for my British Engineer platoon. 

March was a bit of an odd month as well. My boy has been showing an interest in playing with my models, sitting with me at my desk, rolling dice and knocking figures over (he is only 4). I'd been tidying and came across some random models, which I built to add to what he could play with. This Necron was one of those models, along with a few bits of Age of Sigmar. 

I actually really enjoyed painting these (though I've the 3rd one still to finish). Nice models, and the boy finds it easy to tell who ae the goodies and baddies (as the other models I have are ghosts). I ended up buying an old AoS starter set for cheap, just to have opposing forces. Yet another project. As an aside, the boy selected the colours!

Later in the month, I attended our wargames club in Northallerton, and we had a run out of DaveD's 15mm Battle of the Bulge table and figures. This is a newish project for him, and it looked 'cool'. 

And back to WW2 models for me, a trio of 15mm plastic Jagdpanthers. I'd spent time applying something approximating zimmerit to these kits, which ended up with an effect that is passable from a distance. The main reason for adding these is that we are planning a Market Garden campaign this year, and I'd had the models kicking around for a bit. I've also got three King Tigers and a bunch of allied halftracks in the painting queue. 

Then into April, where I've been working on painting King Tigers, building my first batch of Sdkfz 251's for Market Garden and playing on DaveD's winter table again. Less of a win for the yanks this time, but he'd added more toys to the Germans... Still, an exciting and good-looking game. 

And that's me up to date!

Plans for the rest of the year mainly revolve around painting the necessary equipment to play Market Garden games. I've enough tanks, but allied transport is still lacking. I'm sure we'll play more on Daved's winter table - and while I was tempted to get some winterised British stuff going, I'll refrain. 

40k, Necromunda, AoS and Legions Imperialis may also distract me!

AAR: Juno Beach – Mike Red and Nan Green sectors

Hi folks,

Game three in our summer series of D-Day games. This time we went with the Canadians landing in and around Courseulles-sur-Mer. 

This was the first game we've played width-wise. Dave had a chance to test out his new 12' beach mat, while I used my newly produced (by Bren) sea wall. 

Map from http://www.junobeach.info/juno-3.htm (Not my image!)

As ever, the layout was our best approximation of the table using our available bits. We followed our usual routine of setting up in advance. Getting the table organised takes us three or four hours. The below images are from before we 100% completed things (missing some hedges and other bits). 

We were joined in this venture by 'Elvis', in Commando kit. 

The following day we finished the setup of the table and prepped some of the new additions to the game. The first was the use of a ribbon to mark the tide line. The plan was to advance the ribbon up the beach by a few inches every couple of turns. Any vehicle caught by the tide would be swamped and knocked out - which happened a few times to bogged-down tanks. The second different thing was that I was commanding the Germans rather than just umpiring. 

With heavier defences on this beach and the moving tide, casualties were high on both the east and west beaches. The extra cover and height provided by the town buildings posed a particular challenge - especially when occupied by a sHMG platoon. 

The landing sequence went along the lines of one turn every 5 minutes of real time. The DD tanks arrived on turn 1, Breaching teams and the first two infantry companies on turn 2, another two infantry companies on turn 5. Nothing further till turn 11, which we didn't get to. 

I mentioned casualties were high. To the left of the port was a bunker with a Pak43. It's A/T rating of 17 basically meant that no allied tanks would get a saving throw. Luckily for the attacking troops, it started the game pinned and refused to unpin for most of the game. Then it consistently rolled 1's for firepower checks, leading to a lot of bailed out tanks. The Germans also had several 5cm and 7.5cm guns, in both bunkers and in ringstands. 

This led to allied tanks prioritising shooting at anti-tank guns, leaving the machine gun positions active. Much to the detriment of the allied infantry. 

Of course, the Germans had no reinforcements while more allied units will eventually arrive. This leads to a gradual chipping away of their positions until a breakthrough is achieved. On the left of the port, this occurred when attacking infantry took out the HMG positions opposing them and advanced inland, starting to flank the defences. On the right, brute force got allied troops into the German positions. It's been our experience that once the infantry are in amongst the gun bunkers, it's all over. 

The task of getting tanks off the beaches was made difficult due to sea walls, which had to be breached. 

German gunners soon learned that their 5cm guns were useless against the front armour of the Churchill AVREs. 

On the right, allied tanks were making their way inland, supported by the remains of the assault platoons. On the left, tanks had just begun to get off the beach, and while some nasty street fighting remained, the majority of the German units had been broken up and routed. 

And all game, the tide kept rising. 

The game ended with the allies having gotten off the beach, but only capturing one of three objectives. In this case, we took the view that the Germans had delayed the advance more than had occurred historically - although that's not based on any real interpretation of time other than that we played for the whole day!

This was the coolest-looking table we've put together, and this was the hardest-fought game this summer. We're now planning Sword Beach for the end of this month. Omaha Beach will be last, in August.