Old minefields you say?

 Stupid command cards FTW! Was Old Minefields good? No. Was it funny? Yes. Would it be entertaining as part of a Beach Defence Company that is defending and already also getting actual minefields? Very much yes. 

FallschirmStuGs vs. 'Dutch' Cota

My first game of the day was against blogger Scotty in Contact. Norman 'Dutch' Cota lead a pair of Armoured Rifle platoons (hereafter ARPs) supported by their artillery and some cheeky Stuarts into combat with my FallshirmStuGs somewhere behind the beaches of Normandy.

 

Scotty pushed the two ARPs forward, aggressively into the village on my right and along the hedgerows on my left while the Stuarts snuck up the centre. The ARP on the right tripped a StuG ambush who promptly, with the help of Heinz Deutsch, sent all the M1 halftracks to the rear in the most explosive way possible while Scotty passed 13 out of 14 infantry saves to debark!

 

On the left, the StuGs had a much less successful time against the ARP but they bravely pushed through the gap in the hedge to discover someone left a minefield there which promptly vexed an M1 into flames. Despite this, 'Dutch' pushed them forward to the next hedgerow:

 

Scotty's first reserve arrived at the same time his Stuarts decided to commit some shenanigans! On the hill in the top right you can see five 76mm-armed (don't look too closely at the models) Shermans who popped a Hummel on the turn they arrived, greatly reducing my ability to keep the ARP on my right pinned - turns out I didn't need them anyway, Scotty couldn't unpin that platoon for love nor money! This was the beginning of an epic duel...

  

The Stuarts chased some cheeky side shots on my StuGs, to no avail, and when more StuGs arrived from reserve, I was able to pull the ones on my right back to deal to the Stuarts while the other six went after the 76mm Shermans. This is where the rolling fives came into play as I basically popped a single Sherman every turn for the next four turns for the loss of no StuGs in reply. 

Scotty and 'Dutch' pushed aggressively into the centre of the table and the sheer volume of bazookas put my StuGs in real danger. Mercifully, some lucky Defensive Fire and the inability for 'Dutch' to push those boys into a second assault, only cost me one vehicle! Scotty finally landed some hits on the StuGs with his 76s but was defeated by either German steel or poor quality ammunition....

  

My FJ platoon arrived from reserve and began to threaten his central ARP, ably supported by the OP and his broom handle, while on my far right, four M10s arrived from reserve and singularly failed to hit a StuG losing two in the return fire. The ARP on my right finally unpinned and rolled up for some carefully positioned assaults into the StuGs who, miraculously, survived as they were at real risk of not being able to retreat over a hedge and being captured!

 

In the end, both the ARPs were whittled down to too few teams to be combat effective against the remaining German armour. The Priests and Shermans both got shot up and fled and when a couple of Pumas arrived from reserve and dealt to the mortar halftracks, the game was pretty much done. 

It was Scotty's first game with the ARPs and he ran them well! The volume of bazooka shots is occasionally terrifying and if you can manage to get clear shots on the move and hit Careful troops on 5s then bazooka skirts or not, they're genuinely a risky proposition, especially with the followup assault. He pushed aggressively and made the most of the large platoons to vex me in multiple places. Had his dice been just a touch better, I'd have been in real trouble in a couple of places. I got consistently better luck hitting and penetrating his armour than I did making him fail infantry saves!

What did I learn? That Flames of War is an easy game for babies if you can roll 5s and that the FallshirmStuG list in the D-Day books is just not great. They're just too expensive to run as a core platoon - the 10 StuGs that are the core of the list are almost 60 points...

My second game was against Tank's Commandos and between his Typhoons and my appalling dice, the game was over fairly smartly as, by the time I got reserves, I only had one real shot at moving a pair of late Churchills off an objective so I could try assaulting the Commando platoon off it as well. It was....one of those games. 

I've also finally finished up the air support for Panzerschreck XXIII: 

Just adding the decals kind of finishes them off nicely. They'll be very silly in a few weeks! 

Next Time

A camel. That's all I'm going to say about that.  

Bork bork, I'm a doge...

 I've started on the Arbites with the easiest model to begin with, the doge:

He was an easy one to do  while I got the base coats onto all the other models. They've had their black, gold, skin and leather all done and are waiting on the basecoat of red and bunch of washes before I get stuck into the details. Looking forward to painting them, they're such fun models.

Silly Tanks

I finished up the Sheridans as well, using the last of my Vallejo 71.141 IDF Sand Grey.  

I had forgotten what a PITA working with the Vallejo airbrush paints were without an airbrush! As much as I know I've done this eleventy-million times before as painting the whole army but jeez. It looks good but it sucks so much. On the plus side, they're ready for a game of Seven Days to the River Rhine with Blogger Pel in a few weeks!

Panzerschreck XXIII

Having finished up the last two Semovente 75/34s, here's the whole force: 

 I'm just waiting on the decals to arrive from the UK for the UFOs and she'll be all done. Is it a good list? No idea. It's got all the core bits that the Italians do well, and some air support, so we'll see how she goes. It's Tank and me, so it's going to be some degree of debacle...

Next Time

Like many gamers, we're doing a D-Day thing at the club so there'll be a report from that. I'll be breaking out my classic FallschirmStuGs, a list which is generally terrible but I've added in some stupid command cards to give it a laugh too.

Pooch's May- Bugs, DAK and Tribal- oh my!

So, a very late blog, but that's not an indication that I haven't been making a bunch of progress- if anything, it's proving that the opposite is true!

1. Paint something bought before 2024

So, I got a bit inspired with how well the few pieces of DAK I painted last month went, and decided to actually finish all of the rest of my DAK- I've had them for years, and it was time that I actually finished them all up so that I can play a whole host of different options in my games of Flames of War!

This is everything that needs to be painted.....

So if that's everything I need to get done, how far along did I get?

Well....

Two 75mm Infantry Guns, figures from Battlefront but guns from Potbelly Miniatrues

Two HMG teams

Three Panzer IVs

Another view of the 3 Panzer IVs

Comparison in barrels

1 251/1C halftrack

And last but not least, a battery of 105mm artillery!

In short, a whole lot of progress, but I've got to do a proper push if I want to get them all done in June!

2. Paint something bought in 2024

It wouldn't be a blog from me this year, if there wasn't a whole bunch of new Tyranids in it. So this month, I finished up...

 

Deathleaper. Because, something has to make you scared of the dark! 

It's weird skirt tail thing is cool

"Who has for sword arms and a bad attitude? This guy"

Swarmlord's back

Another view of the Swarmlord

I've got lots of bugs to go, but this is still progress! 

3. Play a game of 40k each month

I failed miserably on taking photos for this one, but Pooch Jr and I had a game of Combat Patrol, where they borrowed some Necrons I have been painting for a commission, fighting against my Tyranids.

They enjoyed it, so more games will be in order!

4. Play a game of not-40k each month

I got the Vikings I painted last month out out for a game of Tribal (pick it up here). The game saw my Vikings taking on some Ewoks, lead by Chewbacca! 

It was a topsy turvy game, while the Vikings started well, and ended up on top, some great play in the last few turns saw the Ewoks emerge victorious.

Vikings advancing

Vikings taking down some Rebels

Chewie vs Banner bearer. The Scout Trooper WAS harmed in the making of this video

All in all, Tribal was an enjoyable game, I'll be definitely playing it again for sure.

Pooch

Chariots galore!

 Let's start with some workbenchy updates this week. First off, as part of the insane project clearance focus, getting the last of my TY off the decks has started. TY you say? Yes! Blogger Pooch gave me some Sheridans:

So I have started working through the very dregs of my Vallejo IDF Sand and doing the 1000 layers of base coats and then starting on the rust orange. From here it's green, a gentle wash, and then 1000 more layers of IDF Sand again. Doing these has reminded me that I'm keen for some more 7DttRR so will break that out with Blogger Pel in a month or so's time. I've also knocked off the last two Semovente 75/34s Blogger Tank and I will need for Panzerschreck:

They didn't take long. I'm now debating whether I should base these two OR de-base all my other tanks in that army. Right now I'm leaning towards de-base but that's a lot of cleaning polyfilla and glue off tank tracks for the next month...

Chariots galore! 

I defended Greece from the well documented Q'in invasion of the last 1000s BCE. On the plains of Greece, fortress Achaia settled in between a hill and a marsh and let Q'in come to us: 

Q'in attacked across the front, moving it's Heavy Spear aggressively towards the Greek chariotry. The Achaians held their right flank on the hill but advanced in the centre while their chariots aggressively harassed the Q'in skirmish line:

 Nestor led his Pylian Spearmen and attempted to pin the Q'in chariots and light cavalry in place thinking that Heavy Spearmen can easily face down these chariots.....<hubris incoming>

 

This pretty much reflects my engagement with Scotty's heavy spear for the whole game. After he sensibly withdrew the skirmish line to safety - my Light Chariots rode up, threw javelins and evaded away when charged. I think I managed to plink off about two or three points but was trying very hard NOT to fight them. Looking at the combat factors, I probably could have - I just needed to do a bit more plinking first!

 

After one spearmen broke from the Q'in line and scattered the Greek skirmishers, he was roundly set upon by the Myrmidons who then formed up and waited for the Chinese charge. This is where we learned that Impetuous Medium Swordsmen Polearm are fricking HORRIFYING as they can, relatively easily, delete LMI and Medium Infantry in a matter of one round of combat.

 

And then I forgot to take photos... 

Basically, I came off my hill and sacked Scotty's left flank - the Myrmidons didn't have much trouble rolling up the Q'in spearmen once the one on the end of the line routed. On the other hand, on my left, I lost a Heavy Spear in two rounds of combat to a light horse (this was the hubris!) and Scotty's chariots made pretty easy going of my Heavy Spear (which I thought would have held on better.) In the centre, my Medium Spear and Bowmen held off Scotty's Medium Spear and Crossbowmen and he broke before I did.

What did I learn?

I'm running included Ordinary generals which meant that while I mostly had enough pips to do what I want, I slowed right down with some bad dice and couldn't patch as many gaps or take advantage where it was in the offing. I'm also going to have a good play around with the structure as I'm not sure I'm super happy about how I've put the list together. I think there's a better command structure for the Mycenaean list in particular.  

We re-racked for a second game and I swapped out for the regular Mycenaeans. It went....badly. Very badly. I lost pretty much all my strike capacity in one round of combat - turns out Light Chariot fighting Heavy Chariot is fine unless all you roll is 1s and all Scotty does is roll more than 1s! This was why I started thinking about new ways to run this list in particular as I spent half the game trying to get out of my own road!

Next Time

 Finished Sheridans and a bit of a gallery of the Panzerschreck army I think, especially as I should have the decals on the flying saucers by then too!

Long Weekend Workbench

 Thought I'd post a day late this week and take advantage of the long King's Birthday weekend. I've got a couple of longer-term plans that I want to do and to get those done, I need to clear the decks so I've decided to focus on a few projects (all of them nice and discrete) to make space for the two big projects.

I started the weekend with my Kasrkin Kill Team that were only primed:

They're a great kit with some really cool options. I'm especially fond of the melta-mine dude and the sniper. I'm keen to get these guys out for both Kill Team and 40K!

I've also prepped the last two models I need to paint for Panzerschreck:

and those will get easily knocked off during the week. Then I'll get the whole army out and do a bit of a tidy up I think. Some of the models are getting on in years and could probably use a tidy up!

Secondly, I built and based an Adeptus Arbites Kill Team and Exaction Squad that I'm definitely using in 40K at the first opportunity: 

The Arbites box is close to being excellent aside from one particular model where you have the choice to build one or the other. I decided the Medic was the kit that wouldn't be easily fudged and instead did some gentle kitbashing and made up a Leashmaster (you can see him with the leash in one hand and shotgun on the shoulder). I did appreciate the fact the kit came with enough holstered shotguns for all the models that aren't carrying one but, for 40K purposes, would otherwise have one.

Finally, the UFIs are almost done: 

 I'm pretty happy with the cleanliness of the white - it's still scruffy enough to fit in with the wider army and, to top it all off, I've found an outfit in the UK that makes 1:100 & 1:144 decals for Italian aircraft so those are in the post to finish these up. I think I need to put a few highlights onto the gun barrels and then they'll be ready!

 Next Time

I'm taking the Mycenaeans out again and I'm thinking I'll give the Trojan War variant a punt. I'll take a bunch of photos and try and write a detailed game report!