"I can re-rail fold skill shecks"

 Or, it was just like Hannibal but in 1944. Overall, the Axis were soundly beaten by the Allies around Monte Cassino. At least two of the Axis team (McBeth Jr Jr and I, by our own admission!) actively aided the Allied cause with our command decisionmaking!

In real terms, the first outing for 653 in 2021 did not go well. 1-4 for the weekend. A couple of the games were pretty difficult with a gnarly matchup made more challenging by the scenario. Of the other three, I won one and lost the other two on a die roll (bailed Elefants do not hold objectives! Twice!) so not all bad! I only lost three Elefants and one Tiger over the whole weekend, which wasn't all bad either. My fear of rockets is greatly reduced. 

 I knew the army was VERY small (but I didn't realise how small against a couple of the infantry armies I faced!) and while also very effective, the move to v4 means the loss of some of the colour (namely the unique AA quads and the list construction / army morale rules) have made the army a lot less flexible. It's also critically dependent on being able to avoid playing some scenarios and in a narrative event like the weekend, that wasn't going to happen. 

P47s or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Rocket

On a positive note, despite my list and some of my play choices, I still tied for most tanks killed and if I could have rolled a 3+ firepower roll in the last game, I would have won that and my stupid army choice would have been entirely validated! I also got to try out three of the new missions from the FoW pack (Dogfight, Cornered and Spearpoint) and they were all interesting and will warrant some more plays to work out how to play them. 

Blogger Pel bravely sends in the M10s

I also got to pick up the next bit of my 40K escalation and we had a good think about our club's end of year event, Remember December, and have concluded we're going to see if we can play Early War - it's the favourite period for a lot of us - for me it's because the armour is just SO bad and 5+ firepower is the order of the day.

Workbench

 In amongst all the prep for the event, I did get some work done on my first unit of Shores. The bases are still setting, so they're not quite finished, but near enough for publication. The mortars are done, but not their gunners or bases yet.

Almost complete Shore Trooper squad

I found, having a hunt around the interwebs, a really good image of the various Shore Trooper action figures, which showed the Squad Leader markings and the Captain's markings (not that this model exists, but I will get one if it appears!!). 

Next Time

I'll get the Shores finished, and probably the Mortars crew painted and based and, assuming some out of print foliage arrives from Noble Knight at some point in the next week, I'll get started on the work for Panzerschreck in July. I have more Elefants, SdKfz 7/2s and Wespes to do and an old SdKfz 250 OP to repaint.