Imperial War Museum London

Did anyone notice radio silence for a week? I was overseas for the first time in the COVID era and that was itself an experience. While I was overseas, I took some time to swing by the Imperial War Museum in London as it's been 15 years since I was last there and was interested to see what had changed. 

One of my favourites is still sitting in the main atrium:

 

I remember being shocked at just how big the V2 is. This might be due to never having seen a modern ICBM in the flesh, as it were, but it's comfortably 2.5 stories of the IWM atrium.   The rear side has been cut open so the inner workings of the missile can be seen too.

 

 

On the subject of big, MBTs! Last time I was here, this spot was occupied by a Matilda II in Caunter camouflage which was large but this T34/85 staggers me. There's a Sherman elsewhere in the museum and man they're just big. I mean sure, not as big as a modern MBT but still. Shortly after I took this, a bunch of kids appeared from behind the tank and barely even came up to the top track!

 

 I do love good nose art and while this lacks the pin-up-ness of the side of a B25, I really enjoyed getting up close and personal with the nose of a Lancaster. I overheard someone tap on the nose bubble and comment to a small child "imagine what flying in there would have been like" and y'know what? I choose not to.

 

I included this image just for blogger Tank, who actually owns a 28mm version of this Home Guard weapon. The Smith Gun was one of those ingenious British inventions of World War II to make up for the shortfall of kit after the Battle of France. While it had both a reputation for killing it's crew and was not anywhere near as effective as anyone hoped, it's still brilliant.

 

This Harrier, hanging from the ceiling, might be one of my favourite museum presentations of an artifact ever. I love being able to look down the intakes to the actual turbines. It comes alongside a really good biography of the plane lingering on a sortie where it flew danger-close air support during the war in Afghanistan. 

 

Also hanging in the atrium are a Spitfire (because obviously) and again, hanging it from the ceiling is cool. There's also a specific exhibit of the Rolls-Royce engine elsewhere in the museum that gets into why it's so good! In the foreground though is a Japanese MXY-7 Ohka rocket powered kamikaze aircraft which I'd never seen. I assume it was here last time I visited but I don't remember!

Finally this Ferret Scout Car from UN Service in the Balkans IIRC. When I was last in the UK, the British Army were retiring the Ferret and were selling them on the open market. I thought about how much fun it would be to own one until I realised it wouldn't fit in the supermarket car park (that was 100% the reason I didn't buy one. Honest.) 

Exhbitions

The World War I and World War II exhibits were both very good and I loved that, as part of half-term activities, there was a dazzle camouflage class. New since the last time I visited was a sobering and very effective Holocaust exhibit that used some very personal narratives to tell the story of the persecution of Jews in Europe from the 20s to the end of the war. It was, fittingly, quiet and reflective compared to the rest of the museum. I also found the potted history of the Cold War and the part of the museum dedicated to the British Army's operation in Northern Ireland during the Troubles both very worthwhile.

 There was also an exhibition about wargames (of the electronic variety) that I didn't even get near given the half-term ness which was a shame given I think it would have been interesting to see but hey. 

Next Time

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.  

DROMM! Show me the wizard who killed my mother...

 Super short blog this week due to many hours not spent painting. I have finished Dromm, the eponymous leader of the Gorechosen of Dromm. 

This is another one of those ones where I've followed along with GWs painting guide up to a point before I diverged to paint armour the way I like painting red armour (see Titans here) and brass but otherwise kind of used their ideas. I am looking forward to finishing up the other two and getting these idiots on the park.

And if the blog title made no sense, I offer you this gem from Jon and Al Kaplan on YouTube:

Next Time

 Something different for a change. Not sure what yet.

Doin' it Easy

Ever since watching Band of Brothers I have wanted to build a US Parachute Company, based around the Battle for Foy. 

When I saw the winter troops for the American Bulge book I knew the project was on. Starting with the figures - I don't know why I was expecting plastics, but when they arrived they were metal. They are terrific sculpts with a good variety of poses and cleaned up really well. 

I like the chunkiness of the figures, as if they are wearing as many layers as they can. For inspiration I went back to Band of Brothers again. I wanted to pick up on the way the winter uniforms were haphazardly pieced together. Some men had winter coats, some in normal uniform, lots of scarves and gloves. I like the way there is only the occasional white helmet too, supplies were short and they spread them out as best they could. 

As the paint scheme came through the basing was my next challenge. White is alway a tricky colour to get some depth in. Citidels Wraithbone is off white enough to give a little depth into the basing. I decided to paint the bevels white too. I then put a snow flock over ther base. Some bases were finished with winter grass and some with log piles cut from trimmed plants in my garden. I like to base platoons slightly differently to be able to tell them apart on the board (small numbers on the back of bases don't work for these old eyes). I then went mad and bought Armour, 3" guns, mortar and an HMG platoon. Plenty of this project to complete. 

And here is what I have completed so far.

I've backed the Germans into a corner and that might not have been the best idea....

Three games of Flames at the club yesterday. Let's see if I have enough pictures to put together a coherent battle report.... 

Mid War Guastatori vs Panzers

Clubmate BB is running a 100 point MW event in the new year with the Panzer Buns points and while the changes in the Italian section aren't super significant, they're enough that I went off and had a look at alternative options for playing MW Italians and came up with something that I think might be really really good fun - Guastatori! Without the points changes, the list looks like this: 

• HQ
• 2x Guastatori platoons
• Mortar platoon
• 47mm Elefantino Platoon
• 5x L6/40 Platoon
• 5x M14/41 Platoon with the Iron Men Command Card
• 6x Semovente 75/18 Platoon 
• 100/17 Artillery Battery with the (no-brainer) Captured 25pdr Command Card
  

With the points changes, the list is *identical* with the reduced price for the 47mm and 100mm guns offsetting the increase in the L6/40s and Captured 25pdr upgrade. 

So how did it go? Well, it definitely gave Clubmate Pat's Panzers a really rough handling.

 I deployed one of my Guastatori platoons on the objective in my deployment zone and the other in column to run to the other objective alongside the L6/40s. I put the 25pdrs facing Pat's deployment zone. Pat went first and his 10.5cm howizers and the combined fire of some Panzer IIIJ (late) and Panzer IV F2s destroyed two of the 25pdrs but didn't do a lot else.

Apparently I didn't remember to take a photo until the third turn which was where my massive platoon of Semoventes had arrived and removed some StuG Gs and I was busy trying to chase down Pat's IVF2s with my Guastatori like this was Version 3. :)

In the next photo, you can see the hero Italian 25pdr crew that passed every single morale test it needed to and at this point had just shot the IVF2s into fleeing the board! I'd popped the ambushing 47mm guns to deal with the 251s and to reinforce that objective from the impending assault from the IIIJs:

Pat realised he had to go and give it a blat and he did. The Panzer IIIs had a bad time when one was destroyed by a 47mm gun in defensive fire and they didn't stay past the first round of combat. Then Pat decided that he should launch a Mounted Assault:

And boy did he ever. I missed with all the defensive fire and so he got to do a bunch of fighting from his halftracks. It was AWESOME. Eventually the Italian morale failed and they retreated before coming back the following turn and wiping out the Panzergrenadiers and the Panzer IIIs and breaking the Germans.

Pat noted afterwards, he faffed a bit too long trying to decide which objective to chase and by the time he'd decided, the insane 25pdr crew had basically ruined his plans.

Late War Volksgrenadiers vs Cromwells

Blogger Pel and I managed two games - the first was a short and brutal Breakthrough. I offer you this one picture taken at the end of Pel's first turn: 

 

Let's just say that the 75mm ambush, the arrival of Panthers from Reserve and a couple of horrible rounds of shooting broke the Cromwell Company. The second was Cornered and was a much more intriguing proposition. Here you can see our deployments. Me holding my corner and Pel making very efficient use of his Spearhead to shove all his armour forward and down one side of the board.

 

 

Turns 2 and 3were fairly uneventful aside from one thing. Pel sensibly hid his tanks behind the forest and hill on that side of the board, especially as I had Panthers come on from reserve and still had my 75s in ambush. What was interesting? I got one of my Volks assault platoons out of it's trenches and advanced, hoping to sneak through the central forest and accost the M10s. Pel brought up the Daimlers and Paras and over two rounds we had some solid fisticuffs where I pinned his incoming assault and then he didn't pin mine, but I failed EVERY save for the charging unit. He finally landed an assault and in the end, the Paras were wiped out and Siegfried Moldenhauer raced off at the end of the combat after the remnant of the Volks platoon fled the park. Why? See below:

 

 This is turn 4 I think - Pel baited out the PaK40 Ambush with a platoon of Cromwells and advanced the M10s. You can see Moldenhauer on the right of shot going to get the other Volks platoon that had decided to go sack the Sextons to stop them killing my PaK 40s. They spent two turns pinned and by the time Moldenhauer got there, they rallied without him.

This is the last dramatic photo. Over the last two turns, Pel had to get his M10s into the forest to get within 8" of the front objective to keep the game going. The Volksgrenadiers who unpinned turned back and charged into the forest to destroy the M10s in close combat. Moldenhauer made three assaults and rolled 1s in two of them. 6 points y'say? Actually, having Panzerschrecks hit on 4+ in assault is worth it, let alone anything else. 

It was a tough match for Pel - AT10 on the Cromwells means the Brigade Panthers are basically the best assault gun there is and the Cromwells are struggling against StuGs and even Panzer IVs - I'm definitely easier to hit, but I can make a goodly number of saves against the 75s and when I hit, the Cromwell's chance of saving is not anywhere near as good. In the end, Pel responded to an enquiry as to how the game was going with "I've backed the Germans into a corner and that might not have been the best idea...."

I *really* like this Volksgrenadier list. I've decided I really want to get rid of the "transform your leFH howitzers into pretend PaK40s Command Card" for actual PaK40s in the core because when you're all Reluctant / Trained / Aggressive, the core is very brittle. I'm also prepared to pay the extra points for not being a Large Gun and having a 3+ save because hot damn, I lost a lot of models to Sextons and me rolling less than 4+. I think to fit that in, I probably wind up having to downgrade the Volks StuGs to Volks Hetzers but as I'm a huge Hetzer fan, that's probably okay...

More Underworlds

I've finished up the Shadeborn and they are just fun. I really really enjoyed painting these and while I persist in hating edge highlights, I think I'm getting better at using them on some small occasions when they really do something I want. In a game with Bloggers Pooch, Scotty and Pelarel yesterday they did sterling work although I didn't once manage to do a Shadow Charge with Slythael Shadestalker - I had to walk like a peasant.

I've also knocked these two little horrors out of the pile:

They're a leftover from a couple of bases in my Ghosties Kings of War army and I'm planning to find a home for them in DnD somewhere. Not sure where yet, but they'll be good ones to have in the DMs box methinks. 

Next Time

The Gorechosen of Dromm! I've started on the next Underworlds warband and am making slow progress on them and I'm hoping to have them done by next weekend! 

Workbench week

I'm suffering from a dearth of painting time at the mo and it's showing. I'm making VERY slow progress on lots of things but it is indeed slow. 

Spanish Colonial

More 15mm cavalry on the block and proving to be a little slow.  I am struggling with the motivation to paint these. I think I'm just out of practice painting things that aren't uniform and it's not going all that well. I've still got 4 Knight bases and two more Tercios to do and they're gonna be hard.

More Underworlds

After running a slightly wrong 3-player game at the club, bloggers Scotty, Pooch and I had another go.  Rippa's Snarlfangs, Blackpowders Buccaneers and the Storm of Celestus met in mortal combat. The combat was mostly mortal for everyone other than Pooch's Storm of Celestus! 

I tried hiding myself away from Pooch's many crossbows, but I did sneak Rippa Narkbad out on one flank to try and a) get him attacked to inspire the rest of the crew, b) knock off one of the Sigmarines cheaply and c) tempt him to chase me.

I succeeded at a). Everything else, less so. On my other flank, my wolves had happily eaten a couple of Gnoblars without too much difficulty. 

I took off into the midfield to score a couple of objectives and buy some of the sweet upgrades I had in my hand and the net result was getting absolutely murdered by an Ogre with a blunderbuss and bunch of Sigmarines who just would. not. die.  In the end, I didn't really play the third turn and Pooch won by a bunch because Scotty couldn't score anything and I was well dead. I think Rippa's Snarlfangs are a very finesse crew - getting the three-on-one early to try and even the numerical challenge is definitely a goal here.

We played a second game between Slythael's Shadestalkers, Hedkrakka's Madmob and Elathain's Soulraid. I only took one photo:

because I haven't finished painting Slythael's Shadestalkers yet. I spent a chunk of the day following along with the painting guide to get her done with a view to finishing the army over the week coming. 

This was right at the end of the game where Slythael herself had tried to kill the Ork boss and then snuck off to finish off the Idoneth boss instead bouncing through the cover hexes. In the end, I won that game by virtue of scoring a pair of 2-glory objectives from having things in cover hexes and committing some serious violence. 

Slythael gets her own photo though as I'm pretty happy with how she came up.

Next Time

I'm taking my mid-war Italians out for a run. I've got a fun little 100-point Guastatori company so that should be a nice change from the usual armoured company. More Underworlds, and hopefully I'll finish the 15mm cavalry I'm working on.