Phew, what a weekend!
The gliders were finished at 3am Saturday morning, after a marathon of masking and airbrushing.
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| Taped, ready for the final coat |
I sprayed the underside using the blue from the Vallejo Air German RAL colour set, then covered the underside of them using Tamiya masking tape. Then the lighter top colour, more tape, then the darker green black, wait for it to dry and peel it all off...
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| Pretty! |
That was fun... but doing it to 8 gliders, the crashed 109 and a Stuka nearly killed me. While the paint was drying I relaxed by painting the remaining transport motorcycle stands, car and objectives...
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| So much tape! |
After blacking the canopy windows of the gliders, I decided to call it a day, as I draw the line at applying decals at that time of the night (or morning!)
This allowed a few hours of sleep before my pick up by my partner of
crime hobby for the day, Justin 'the troll' Carnzu.
The show itself was of the same high standard set by the year before, with a good selection of traders, bring and buy, and tons of tables for tournament players! Its well worth a visit, even if the 'ladies enter free' policy seems a tad old fashioned (didn't stop Leah lording it up on the Sunday though). Show deals were a bit thin on the ground, although I did pick up a M18 hellcat Platoon, for my Easy company Airborne list, along with some Grilles for my Panzer Lehr, my Kickstarter Winter War Finns (see these feature in the coming Winter War series) and another KR multicase to store it all in!
On to the Gaming! Four Games over two days, 1500pts. With 30 players in the Early War tournament, and another 20ish in the Midwar tournament, it was impressive to see that many tables set out. The quality did vary, with some spectacular ones (mainly featuring 4Grounds breathtaking terrain, which I am loosing the will to resist) to some less than fantastic ones, that were still perfectly functional.
The draw was done, the tables allocated, and it was time get it on!
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| The Whole Force |
GAME ONE
Was against Ian Mann who was borrowing Tim Harris' 'Escaudron De Combat' tank list, with the mission being Counter Attack.
Wind was rolled, with it coming from the right short edge. With Ian holding an infantry platoon into ambush, his tanks with IC in the town on the centre of the board, and various tank teams covering the objective, I decided it was all or nothing, electing to drop one platoon of gliders onto the objective in the open, and use the other to take out the tanks in the town - flying right down the highstreet!
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| The landing zone - apologies for the poor lighting/camera work! |
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| The Pak 36's decided to get in on the action turn one, and try plinking the tanks at an angle |
In come the gliders!!!
In the town, two crash rolling 1's killing a couple of stands, the rest stop a tad shorter than I wanted to:
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| CHARGE! - oh wait, I've been defensive killed by that stonking great gun. |
On the way in, a lucky breakthrough gun shot by the artillery piece took at stand out. The charge only killed one tank... which happened to be the IC. Ian Warrior saved him onto the next tank - dang!
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| Second Platoon lands ok, but gets a tad shot up by the great big guns... |
The other platoon gets in ok, but suffered from some good shooting by more breakthrough guns. Should have aimed for the back field...
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| Tanks rally, and machine gun the glider troops, while the infantry ambush from inside the church |
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| After wiping out the first platoon, the infantry head to support the second who have decided to attack the artillery. And kill my second platoon. |
During these turns, the Stuka was driven off by the fighter interception, then managed to blow a few Somuas up, helped by the Pak 36's. The Flak 38's decided to make a break for the rear objective with their transports!
OOOOPS - these guys actually doubled and covered a huge amount of ground, as I wasn't aware that Motorcycles/jeeps towing guns can only move 8" - sorry Ian!
This break put the pressure on Ian to have to deal with them, as they could quite easily take the back objective that was only guarded by antitank guns with no He - Maybe should have aimed for this rather than squandering them on the other objective.
I had my blood up, and wanted to kill at least ONE platoon - there was still one Somua bailed in the town, I had finshed off the IC Somua, but the risk with the Flaks failed, and they had their platoon command team and a gun killed by shooting, leaving them stuck. The next lot of shooting killed another gun, and the remaining stand failed its moral, and the company auto-broke its moral.
1-6 loss. Dang.
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| DIE!!! Ahem. |
GAME 2
This was against Gary Lyon's Japanese infantry company, the mission being surrounded.
With both of us having auto-attack, it was a roll off - and that's when I lost the game.
Well, kinda. I was defending, with no gliders at all, and with it being night, so no Stuka. Ouch. Setting up over the two objectives, it was a game of choosing not to expose my myself to the artillery by hopefull shooting, instead I slowly fell back and re-organised my defensive lines, awaiting the fateful charges and targets of opportunity.
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| Deployment. |
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| Infantry on the right |
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| Guns on the left |
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| They sneak up, taking some hits from the Pak 36's who then fall back into the concealing desert hazard |
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| But they sneak closer in the darkness... |
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| Banzai! The charge comes in on the top of the board. Those HMG's were worth their weight in gold, driving off several attacks - TWICE |
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| They can only hold off for so long however.... |
After struggling against wave after wave of Japanese attacks and shelling, the platoons slowly dwindled, until a last minute charge of mine failed, leaving me struggling to cover one of the objectives. Although I reduced all three platoons down to a handful of stands they didn't break, leaving me with another 1-6. Oh well!
Sunday to follow!
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