Battle of Bobruisk

 I played a Flames of War game the other night as part of the clubs's current Bagration campaign and decided to resurrect my blog to post my thoughts on the game.

I was playing against Daniel La Salle who set up the table and was fielding a Hungarian infantry force supported by a unit of Hetzers and a unit of Hungarian tanks with the German "Armoured Train" -- really infantry and some armoured cars-- as well as a German Pioneer unit. As he was out of supply his basic force was reduced.

 

I decided  that since I was attacking a city I would take as much artillery as I could so my force was based around a T-34/85 Battalion with 2 companies of 5 tanks each. I took a battery of Katyushas, one of  152mm howitzers, one of 122mm guns and a small battery of 76mm guns. For Firestorm I had a battery of SU-76 self-propelled 76mm guns plus another 3 T3/85s. To round out I took 7 OT-34/76 flame tanks -- and an armoured car with an observer

We were playing the rearguard scenario so I had 9 turns to win so I just had to be patient and not rush forward while there were still threats around (I have never been able to do this)
My tanks did well on the first few turns bashing the Hetzers and the Hungarian made tanks and not taking too much damage in return but my artillery was not all that effective -- not ranging in and not doing too much when it hit. To be fair I probably fired too much of it at the enemy armour since my tanks were doing a much better job of killing the tanks. Three 75mm ATGs appeared from ambush in the crossroads and did quite a bit of damage, I should have been more proactive in moving out of LOS from them.

Soon the Hetzers were wiped on the right flank and the other tanks were gone on the left.

At this point I should have moved some tanks up on the mortars which were damaging my artillery by this point but I figured with 2 batteries ranged in on them at this point I wouldn't need to do that

Some Hungarian infantry moved up to the hedgeline and got burned to crisp by the OT-34s -- I could have then moved them over to burn up the 75mm gus but I didn't want to disrupt my ranged in markers

The German pioneers moved up in the centre though the houses and took quite a pounding but when I moved my tanks to engage I got a bit too close the Hungarian infantry

They managed to close assault and broke my formation (since I only had 2 tank units in my base force). If I had been patient I think it would have been an easy win for me given the setup but I was to hasty and Daniel took full advantage of that. All lot of the damage my tanks took in my previous game against Mike was also done by infantry so I really need to become more aware of the real threat range of infantry.

The OT-34s are quite deadly, I would bring them out again and going with the T-34/85 worked well, I usually go with either a lot of T-34/76s or a smaller number of heavy tanks and I think the T-34/85 in the middle might be the best choice in general for the Soviets.

I am glad I tried this force and I might try something similar in the future but it is hard to rely on Russian Artillery

Progress Report Q1 2019

This year has been pretty good for painting, almost all of it for Saga.

I finished off my Late Roman Warband. This was supposed to be combined with some of my Early Romans to make a more balanced force but I discovered I couldn't easily re-base them so I have this all hearthguard cavalry force which is not really a winning strategy in Saga. Still it should be fun to play and I think the Cataphracts will work well for my usual playstyle of concentrating too much on one good unit.

Once I finished off the Romans I made some good progress on my Franks. I got base colours on them all and ordered some decals. Because I still didn't have enough to do a force with Roland (he needs 4 points of foot at the beginning and then 4 points of mounted after he dies), I have bought a 4 point starter box of Goths who will masquerade as Franks when required.

When the Age of Magic was announced I put the Franks on hold to work on the Revenants. They are still a work in progress. Half are just primed and the others have block flesh colours. If I can get through them this month and then paint the Undead Legions next month I will be in good shape for the Age of Magic event at Cangames

While working on the other stuff, I finished off the two Viking Champions I got from ordering from Gripping Beast as well as Boadicea and Cartamanda.

Finally, once I had my airbrush working again I decided to actually paint something for the Stalingrad Campaign and built a Lend-Lease Churchill force. They are only primed so far but should paint up quickly once I get the right colour.

Plans for the coming months focus on Cruel Seas terrain for Cangames and the undead for Saga: Age of Magic. After that it will be some more Saga terrain and the Franks/Goths. I might turn the airbrush on some Team Yankee Warsaw Pact forces if the mood strikes.

2015: The Year in Review

Looking back over my blog posts for this year it was a pretty good year for playing games but it wasn't all that great for painting (but it wasn't really terrible for that either). I will divide the year up by game rather than time and take a look at what was (and wasn't accomplished)

Descent 2nd Edition:
After having this game for over a year (and buying more expansions than I would care to admit) I started playing this in the summer (we are about halfway through the Heir of Blood campaign now). When I bought this my plan was to paint all the plastic figures and that way I would get something out if it even if I didn't play that much. I did manage to get a reasonable chunk of the base set done when I first got it and I thought that once I started playing it, I would be frantically painting but the reality is that nothing got done (but the game is a lot of fun!)

Flames of War:
We played 2 campaigns at the club in 2015: Firestorm Lorraine and a Fate of the Nation Escalation campaign. Both were a lot of fun and I did a fair bit of painting for both.

For the Fate of a Nation, I painted a bunch of T-55s, SU-100s, PT-76 and and IS-3s for the Egyptians and some Ishermans and AMX-13s for the Israelis. On the downside I bought some M48s and Sho'ts as well as infantry for both sides that didn't get painted (though some of the infantry is primed!)

For Firestorm Lorraine, I had posted my painting goals here and I think I did a pretty good job of getting through that stuff. The PZ IV/70s, the PZ IVs and the Panthers all saw action during the campaign and I think the halftracks got assembled. I also didn't buy anything new during the campaign which is a victory of sorts.

I might as well mention my Vietnam stuff here as well-- there was almost no progress. I based some and primed some infantry but nothing that really gets me close to a game. Again I resisted buying anything new (especially the Riverine stuff  which I am still tempted by)

Hail Caesar:
The beginning of the year was good for Hail Caesar as I painted a bunch of Roman Legion as well as archers and slingers for the game I ran at Cangames in 2015.  The Romans are still my favourite army to paint. I had plans to paint up zombies, skeletons and Beastmen for a Hail Caesar Fantasy game based on the Teutoburg Forest to run at Cangames this year (I had a weeks vacation in September where I was going to paint up a large chunk of it and ended up playing Destiny on the PS4). I would still like to do this  but it is on the back burner.

Frostgrave:
This got played a few times and up to the end of the year, I managed to keep to my plan to play this with the figures I already had. Then this happened. I didn't plan to paint these this year so I don't consider that a negative (yet!).

Bolt Action :
This has been my painting millstone around my neck. I have a lot of good ideas for games based on the Canadians fighting in and around Ortona at the end of 1943. I have discussed terrain with Ed and he has even made me an Italian Farmhouse to try and get me inspired. The idea of running and playing the games is very appealing and even making the terrain should be fun but I just can't get myself to paint the figures.

The number of pieces for each figure in the Warlord Games army box was daunting to start with so I put off putting them together. Then once I had them together I really didn't want to paint them. I wanted to get them painted so I kept them on the painting table and put off starting other projects just so I wouldn't be distracted (the result of which was that nothing got painted for several months). With some prodding from Ed the Germans are mostly painted (but they all need their bases worked up and the halftracks need some weathering and decals.

For the Canadians, I have put together a mortar, a vickers MG and an AT gun and maybe 5 other guys. I am not thrilled with this but I pushed them aside to paint SAGA stuff and hopefully when I come back to them I will be more inspired.

SAGA:
The year did not begin well for SAGA. I had bought a Frankish Starter army and the Gripping Beast plastic medieval guys to paint over the Christmas holidays and I ended up being sick so they are still in their boxes.

When the Saracen set came out for Crescent and Cross as I was pretty good and got that painted up quickly and played a few games with Mike but then the Bolt Action block got in the way. I have managed to catch up and have played with both a Mutatawwi'a warband and and Moorish one but there is still a lot unpainted (my ultimate goal is to have a genericish Arab/Islamic army for Hail Caesar).

I did also pick up the SAGA revenant army in the thought it could also be used in my Hail Caesar Fantasy game and I have done nothing with it.

Other:
I played some Fistful of Kung Fu this year and finished painting the figures I had for that (well, to be honest, Ed painted most of them). I based and primed a Transylvanian army for By Fire and Sword. And I bought a lot of stuff for Team Yankee at the end of the year but that is definitely a 2016 project.

Waiting for the Cold War to go Hot

I had been quite excited about the Team Yankee releases when they were first announced and then as time went on (and my enthusiasm for painting seemed to wane) my interest began to fade. There was quite a buzz about it at the club on the Saga tournament day so my interest began to rise again and when I was in Fandom this week and Randy asked me if I was interested in it, I ended up getting the book and a starter set for each side.

In preparation, I decided I should finish of the US self-propelled guns that I started earlier in the year (they were the first models I painted with my airbrush). I am not sure that I will get much use out them initially since I think both Stan and Mike are going to be painting US forces (but then again I am likely to be getting some "Lend-Lease" from the Kingston Red Banner Army so I will have a bit of leg up on my Soviets as well).

I am kind of annoyed with the way Battlefront has been handling their production troubles. I think I would have been happier if they had kept the original mix of the starter box and delayed them further rather than just releasing them with all tanks (this probably would have cost them some money so maybe they feel that they are not taking a big enough hit on the good will side to care). In any case, I hope they will be in Fandom this weekend so I can grumble as I glue together all my tanks!

Fate of a (different) Nation

This past weekend at the club Mike and I played a couple of games of Flames of War: Fate of a Nation. Being more disorganized than usual, I couldn't find all of my Israeli forces so I just brought my Egyptians -- To provide a thin veneer of "historicalness" we decided they would represent the Iraqis in the 1970 Jordanian Civil war.

My force consisted of a T-55 Commander, a platoon of 10 T-55s, a platoon of 6 IS-3s, a platoon of 5 SU-100s and a platoon of 2 ZSU 57-2s. Mike had an HQ of 2 M-48s (I don't remember the Jordanian name for them) 2 platoons each with 3 M-48s and a mechanized infantry platoon with M-113s

 Here is the Egyptian force ready for action (I hadn't brought all my SU-100s so there are some BTR50s standing in for them)

For the first scenario I had to set up in one corner of the table and the Jordanians set up in the 2 adjacent corners and the objectives were in the 4th corner (but didn't count until turn 6). Mike set up one platoon of M-48s in the town area and the mechanized infantry with the HQ tanks in the valley in the big hill. I set up my T-55s to attack the tank platoon and the IS-3s to go after the HQ and infantry.

On the first turn I managed to take out 1 M48.

In a surprise move the Jordanian M113s do a double time move across the front of the IS-3s!

The IS-3s seem to have been surprised since they rolled really badly but you don't have to roll all that well to destroy an APC with a tank!

Mikes saves for the infantry in the APCs were not all that great (and the surviving M113 fled -- oddly the infantry chose to get out before it fled).

Meanwhile, I managed to take out another M48.

One of the reserve platoons of M48s arrived in the valley but by then my force had concentrated and I had managed to destroy the command tank. Shortly after this, I wiped out all the other tanks for convincing Egyptian (Iraqi?) victory.

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For the next came we were again set up in corners but this time the objectives were in the setup corners.

Mike had only one platoon and chose to dismount his infantry around the near objective and put his HQ tanks hidden in the valley. I lined up all my tanks to charge at the infantry thinking I could wipe it out by turn 3 and win before the delayed reserves could arrive. In hindsight this was unwise

As I moved up, I lost my nerve to some extent and made a long chain of T-55s so I could leave some back on the objective. I am not sure why I didn't just move the IS-3s back and all the T-55s forward but this seemed like a clever thing to do at the time.

The T-55s that moved forward assaulted into the infantry but could go no further because I couldn't move my commander and still be able to get good shots on the reserve M-48s that were now arriving.

They managed to destroy one T-55.

And I destroyed one M48 in return

When the second reserve platoon arrived it moved through my tanks to shoot them from behind causing my moment of grief with the Flames of War rules that I usually have in one form or another each session but even now, I think this rule is a bit dumb even when I think of it just in game terms. Oh well. Mike would have won at this point but we then realized that the objective couldn't be on the edge and he moved it in (I would count this as a win for him since we played with the objective there)

We carried on for another few turns and I managed to kill the Jordanian CinC and enough stuff to force a company check so I managed to win in the "overtime".

I am still enjoying the Fate of a Nation games, which is odd because I don't really like really tank heavy games of regular Flames of War. I guess this will soon be eclipsed by the Team Yankee stuff but I think I will come back to this from time to time.

Rumble in the Desert

On Friday Mike and I got together for some gaming and decided to play some Flames of War. Mike wanted to do some Early War Desert which sounded it good. It turns out that since he only has Germans and I only have Germans and Italians we would have to do an axis on axis game. I am not usually a big fan of that sort of game but the Germans and Italians are quite different and I was keen to get my Bersaglieri into action again.

We rolled for the mission and got a defensive mission but I asked for a reroll (what is the point of all those motorcycles if you are just going to dismount and dig in) so we ended up with Free for All.

In a fit of common sense I dismounted my MGs and AT guns and put them in the town on the left hand side to protect that objective and then spread out the rest of my force with the smaller motorcyle platoon and the howitzers protecting the other objective.

Mike had 2 platoons of Pz IIIs some armoured cars and some motorized infantry.

On the first turn we both moved some stuff forward and (starting a trend which would last the whole game) my air support came on but was completely useless.

The motorcycles came up the hill in the centre (where both my artillery and my Stuka managed to not damage anything in the cluster of trucks that was there before the infantry dismounted) and the two groups of tanks advanced on each flank. I should have dismounted the other infantry so they could dig in but I like having them on their motorcycles for the coolness factor! (My Italians win glory much more often than they win games!!)

Machine gun fire from the motorcycles and the armoured cars managed to wear down the German infantry but my tanks were losing the battle with the Panzers.

The motrocycles line up for the assualt on the hill as the tanks on either side of them get wiped out.

They win that small unimportant battle but then the Germans sweep forward to victory.

It was a fun game but I should have had a better plan (and better luck) I think if I had driven all the bikes towards the objective in the town and dismounted I could have forced a close in fight that would have worked better for me.

I have a bunch of desert infantry for the British but no tanks. I should get some at some point so we can do a proper early war desert game.

Maalintii Rangers

I had listened to an interview about the Skirmish Sangin game on the Meeples & Miniatures podcast and now I see they have a kickstarter for the Maalintii Rangers rules and figures dealing with Somalia.

The rules seem like they would be interesting (if maybe a bit high on the complexity scale for what I want at the moment) and the figures that they have in the kickstarter look pretty good. The figures on the website for the main game are still ok but maybe not really worth the 4 for 7 pounds plus shipping cost.

The big question for me is do I really want to go to 28mm for Moderns and I think the answer is a qualified no. I have enough 28mm terrain for generic industrial buildings now that terrain is no longer the all purpose excuse that it once was for me to go to 28mm but I think I still like the scope that 15mm allows. With the Cold War gone Hot stuff from Flames of War arriving in the not too distant future, I will likely be buying more 15mm for that and I think 15mm is the right scale for what I want to do for Vietnam (even if the progress towards that can best be described as glacial).

Force on Force / Ambush Alley is likely to remain my go to small scale modern game and as a unit based game, I think it works well at 15mm -- I remember having a discussion with Stan a few years ago about this and I still think 15mm is the best scale for the game, though I think it would work with 28mm as well.

I think I will give the kickstarter a miss but I will pick up the PDF of the basic rules and see what I think.

(Added September 27) Here is a link to a picture of a game played in 15mm (from the comments below), it looks fun.

Odds and Ends and Half-Finished projects

I managed to get in a few games in the past weeks. Last weekend I played in a Pike and Shotte Samurai game run by Mike (with his AAR here ). I like this game, the tweaks from Hail Ceasar seem appropriate for the period but it keeps the same basic system and uses the "useful rules" to apply some flavour.

Earlier that week I played some X-Wing with the guys that I usually play Imperial Assualt with. It is a fun game with a surprising amount of depth. I don't have any real urge to pick it up for myself since I don't think I would play it all that much (I did try to convince Meredith it might be fun since she is a big Star Wars fan but there was no interest). There also isn't much non-playing hobby aspect to the game and I spend more time doing that than playing at the moment.

Since Cangames I have been in a bit of a painting slump but I think I am starting to get out of it. Now I just need to finish some stuff before starting new stuff (which is not helped by spending this morning gluing a bunch of new stuff together).

My main focus at the moment are my 28mm Germans for Bolt Action (ultimately for my Ortona games but in the short term just to get enough that I can actually play). The half-tracks are nearly done and the basic infantry platoon is on the way.

This morning I assembled the support weapons and command which is all I am going to do before moving on to the British.

Speaking of which, I assembled the downed pilot and Mad Jack Churchill which were freebies with my latest Warlord purchase.

I put together the Khurusan order stuff which consisted of some modern vehicles (and M1A2, 2 M1114s and a HMMWV cargo carrier)

as well as Dirty Harry and Scorpio.

Since I knew that the glue I was using was going to likely seize up in a week or two anyway (it is "Hot Stuff" which is very good but tends to glue itself shut in fairly short order despite my best efforts) I also put together the Transylvanian force provided by Mike for By Sword and Flame.  These are fairly nice figures but if you are designing a game where figures are based side by side, there is probably a limit as to how many riders firing their musket/matchlock/gun off the side you want to make.

As to other stuff I need to get finished, I have some NVA infantry that I airbrushed khaki and now need to finish up.

Some US self-propelled howitzers that need to be finished

a 28 mm Cromwell

and some Saga Camel troops

If I can get through the Germans without starting anything else, I think I will be happy!