Road to War(fare) Pt 9 - The Sunday

After returning home Saturday heavy with too many toys (see the upcoming pledge update), stuffing my face with Mexican Burgers and Nachos, I felt slightly more alive on the Sunday morning.

GAME 3

Oh dear, another list I was dreading: Soviet Infantry!
Fortunately this was a game against the very polite and gentlemanly Stuart Whigham, playing the "Dust Up Mission".

I deployed the larger Platoon on the objective in my quarter, with the IC, and elected to glider assault the smaller platoon with the 2IC, holding both Gun teams in reserve.

Weeeee! Well, apart from the last glider. That was more - Aaarrrggghhhh!

Stuarts deployment rather as expected, took up his entire deployment area. I got the first turn with a spectacular roll of a 7 (6+1 for finishing deploying first).

 In came the gliders! They landed perfectly, apart from the last one carrying the MG34 teams, who died a grisly death in the crash.

The Blur just makes it more realistic.

I decided not to get stuck in the cold again, and follow some earlier advice and just kill one platoon. The AA MG's took a couple of stands off, and then it was time to get stuck in. The assault went beautifully, the defensive fire (being pinned, rof 1 rifles against vets) missed. Almost all of the stands hit in assault, and the reluctant soviets failed their motivation to swing back. The Kommisar shot a stand to re-roll - and failed! After breaking off, they were in the open for a stuka strike... this put them below half, and so tested again to break - and failed! Bang, another stand dead for the Kommisar re-roll... failed! I had done it! Turn one assault, one platoon dead!

The aftermath - just before they run off!

The defensive platoon dug in, and stayed gone to ground.

Stuart then rolled for his wave attack - Damn! The zombie soviets came back, but at least he decided to put them on the centre section, to threaten my objective.

After shuffling some platoons Stuart pinged some ineffective shots at the brave Luftlandesturm platoon.

On my turn two, I saw a chance to kill two platoons at once - his intermingled anti-tank and second strelk platoon. Carefully moving the platoon forward, I fired the flame thrower at the gun platoon, killing a single stand, and shot the strelkovy, killing a stand but pinning them in the process, which made the stuka strike on the back of the platoon kinda mute - but that killed some more! The assault was on! Clear these two platoons, and then a company check is soon to follow....

Or not. Stupid pinned, conscript strelk managed to get 5 hits on my assaulter's. Dang. Killing a stand in the process, it didn't take long for him to shoot and then assault and kill off what was left of my pinned attacking platoon. Rats.

The defenders.... defending. By not dying. And hiding in their holes.

Tanks. He had to get tanks. These spent a few turns moving in to a firing position - Hen and Chicks meant he couldn't hit me over 16", with Vets+g2g+concealed+range+HaC needs 8's!

Strelk over run the objective...

My Flak guns came in from reserve, and started taking a heavy toll on the strelk in the open...

Dudda dudda dudda dudda!

Oh Great. They have a cave troll artillery

On the right flanks, the Tank Assault 4 was enough to keep him outside of 10", while the artillery rolled up into position. The tanks MG's did nothing, the 6's to hit plus bullet proof cover keeping the platoon intact.

Gun line!

Meanwhile, on the left flank, my second gun team turns up. I lose a Flak gun to the combined shooting from the Strelk and AT guns, pinning them from the number of hits. They managed to move latterly into the treeline, being supported by my AT guns.

Stuart decided that the only way he was going to secure the second objective was to kill the guns, and like a true soviet, threw it all in - Only to die from the massive number of dice, hitting on twos!

The anti-tank guns moved up to contest the objective, killing the soviet Anti-tank platoon. 

This was it, all this other platoons were too far away... apart from his damn anti-air trucks! These moved up, and sure enough, it was all on the wire. The middle strelk platoon moved towards the objective, but was till 18" away, and. and. Those damn Zombie Strelk! The second platoon came back!! This was it. It was break him or lose.

The guns survived the artillery bombardment (easy when it doesn't range in!). The AT guns shoot the trucks, the Flak killed some stands from the centre platoon. More artillery, that ranged in but failed to hit! the soviets drew nearer....

The AT guns shot the crap out of his IC (who had moved up to spot for the artillery). The defensive platoon decided to finally take action-they lit up the centre strelk (who were the zombies of the soviet first platoon) with MG and Rifle/MG fire, killing several stands. The Flak guns wiped out enough of what was left to force a platoon moral check - and if he failed, he would also auto-break as the IC/2ic was dead.... 5+ needed... fail. Commisar re-roll.....

Fail!

I won! 5-2!

Great game, many thanks Stuart!

GAME 4

The final game was against Ian Brook, with his Italian 'Compagnia Bersagliera' or Compaauunniaa Berrrrsealeria - at least that was my attempt at massacring the Italian tongue.

The mission was surrounded, with me defending - fun!

Artillery in trucks.. I did try to warn him

The defence!

Scary big guns!

With the scattered deployment, Ian made the best of a bad situation. I decided to repeat my tactics of the last game, with the large platoon spread across both objectives, the guns in reserves, and the smaller platoon assaulting with the 2ic.

Despite double checking he wanted his artillery in their trucks, and prompting that I had gliders, Ian didn't put two and two together, so the gliders landed, killed two truck/gun teams with their MG teams, and scared the life out of the mortar team on the right flank. The guns didn't flee, but fell back. On the left flank, a Stuka strike took out one of the huge guns.

The remaining gun then missed their shots back at the platoon, with the infantry company hiding in the woods. On the right, the assault platoon took several hits from the anti-air trucks, and mortars, and big guns. Ouch.

In return, the MG teams mowed the trucks down (yey, a whole platoon dead!), and the rest of the platoon went for the mortar teams... They swung in, killing the guns, but leaving the command and 2ic team alive.

The next Italian turn, the heavy guns killed a HMG team, leaving one HMG team in the open, and a single m/g stand and command. (The 2ic had been killed vain-gloriously charging the artillery earlier).

With the HMG team facing the wrong way, the mortar platoon commander and 2ic charged in. The defensive fire killed the 2ic... who warrior saved it onto the mortar platoon commander... who then 'unknown heroed' himself back to life, killing my command an infantry stand.
Dang. The HMG stand died to the breakthrough guns the next turn.

My only other glory in this game was HMG-ing his massive truck-gun-of-doom. Yey!

After that, it was a slow progression from either flank, with tanks closing in. My Stuka didn't really do much, until I ballsed my reserve deployment and instead of trying to cover the objectives with the AT guns, tried to kill another platoon to break him - despite the fact that he was getting more and more (11 in total) platoons each turn. The AT guns died, and I failed my company check (with the Flaks off the board), game over, 2-5 loss.

That Damn unknown hero!

Still a great game, and a fun way to finish a fantastic weekend, meeting some great hobbyists,

Despite having announced that this would be his last tournament, Tim Harris has realised he is still addicted, and will be running another next year - I thoroughly recommend it.

As an aside, I ranked 27 out of 30 for the weekend, not bad for such a challenging list!

Great fun, thinking Mid-war next. Watch this space, and feel free to comment!

Road to War(fare) Pt 8 - The Saturday!

Phew, what a weekend!

The gliders were finished at 3am Saturday morning, after a marathon of masking and airbrushing.

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...

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...

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!

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!

The landing zone - apologies for the poor lighting/camera work!

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:

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!

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...

Tanks rally, and machine gun the glider troops, while the infantry ambush from inside the church

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.

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.

Deployment.

Infantry on the right

Guns on the left

They sneak up, taking some hits from the Pak 36's who then fall back into the concealing desert hazard

But they sneak closer in the darkness...

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

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!

Road to War(fare) Pt 7

Only a quick update of last nights progress - I've got all the bases finished!

Not a lot of stands considering how long they took!

You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to not having to paint camouflage. Even though it was only the odd jacket or helmet cover, it eats time. Next I think I'll get my Brits or American Paras done, nice simple block colours!

Its still a super small army, (considering that the list only has three of each gun, and drops two stands of infantry) especially when you compare it to some tank hordes:
http://www.breakthroughassault.co.uk/2013/11/soviet-kht-26s-and-pre-reading-warfare.html

Looking forward to the games tomorrow, just need to finish the gliders and the motorbike transports tonight.
Expect another update tonight!

Fez

Pew Pew guns! 

Hopefully these guys will rack up plenty of soviet tank kills this weekend

The second half

Tonight's challenge - another 4 out of the picture.

Road to War(fare) Pt6

So, with five days to go until the tournament, I've not really got any further since my last update! A combination of work being busy, along with a week dodging rain, fog and wind trying to glide has really put me back. I have, however managed to take my army to the gaming board for the first time!

Glider Aiming points

Having managed to convince Paul 'Tuffskull' Townsend to run a proxy Soviet Tankovy list (which he is planning to collect eventually), we decided to have a go at the Fair Fight scenario.

It felt funny to only deploy my two gun platoons, leaving Paul to set up his masses of tanks and infantry company(Platoon). I won the roll for first turn, and then it was time to land the gliders!

Having worked out that as long at the aiming point is 7" from a enemy team, I'll be able to assault. However, you've still got to be in command in order to charge. As you ignore the wings, its possible to minimise the spread.

In they go!

I decided to take on the infantry, and hope they fail their 'Zombie' roll (on a 4+ they can come back... gulp).

All that was left was to test the skill of the pilots in the swooping, silent decent onto the battlefield.

Oops. 

Apparently they were not very skilled at this yet, with three of the eight gliders rolling a 1 and crashing. Paul seemed happy at my misfortune.... until I saved all but one stand of infantry on a 5+. After shooting the AA mounted machine guns, (not from the crashed ones) it was time to charge in. This is the first mistake with the rules - I was taking skill checks to see if I could assault, when that's only needed to stormtrooper move if you're not assaulting.
Against the teams that are assaulting from a glider, the defenders count as being pinned down and bailed out for the purposes of defensive fire. The initial assault took out a few stands, and the artillery observer, driving back the main bulk of the infantry.

This combat would push back and forwards over the next few turns, but the intervention of the soviet flame tanks ending up with the Glider troops destroyed, but the soviet infantry company decimated and pinned down.

The left Flank crumbles

The other luftlandesturm platoon went for the tanks on the left flank, These guys fluffed their initial rolls, and ended up having to retreat, before being destroyed by massed machine gun fire.

The Stukas managed to kill a few tanks for the first two turns, but then decided not to come out to play for the remainder of the game - this would really hurt my chances of winning.

By this point, I had gotten so excited about the game I forgot to take more pictures... sorry!

The tanks were hesitant to advance into range of the Flak guns, so stood off, and whittled them down turn by turn. The Pak 36's achieved some great long range kills, including a whole platoon of 5 tanks in one round, and then moving forward to bring the Soviet iC tank into range - only to bail him!

At this point, I only had the two platoons of guns left, and no iC command stands. All I had to do was destroy one more platoon of soviets and they would be forced to take company moral tests. The battle of guns verses tanks went on, as I waited in vain for some air support. As the tanks reduced the Flak guns down to its command stand, they rumbled forward. The command stand passed its moral check (Although I forgot it would have had to take last man standing tests each turn - sorry Paul!). He promptly called forward his transport and made a break for the objective in the soviet deployment zone - it was right down to the wire, with the slow tanks yet to reach the objective abandoned by the Flak guns commander.

Then, my luck ran out, as the Russian iC tank un-bailed, and machine gunned the command stand transport, forcing the company moral check that I auto-failed.

All in all, a fun game, although as I expected, far from competitive - its the ultimate specialist list, so I'm not looking forward to many of the other scenarios.

Now I just need to get on with the painting!!!

Road to Warfare pt 5

First Platoon Finished!

It's been a while!
Well, that's a milestone - first unit finished! The gliders I'm going to do in a batch of airbrush maddness.

Taking my good friend (and amazing painter) Paul 'Tuffskull' Townsends (www.hobbybrush.com) advice, I covered the whole model and base with flat brown. This gives a great shading layer, especially for the skin.

Although the splinter camo was issued to the Fallschirmjager before the invasion of Crete, I decided to do a mix of grey/green and Splinter issued kit, to cover the mix, so these can be used as either early or mid war lists.

The 'Bridge by Bridge' book has a great FJ painting guide in the book, with three colour (shade, Main and highlight) Vallejo colours. The basing foliage is a mix of Army painter Field grass with mininatur 726-33 S 'Tufts with blossoms early fall'.

Whilst painting these guys, I also managed to get objective 1 painted.

Not long to go now, but I'm working through the next platoon!