Random photoshoot

Its been a while since I had these guys out of their boxes. Wasn't in the mood to use them in a solo game so I decided to just put some of them down for a photoshoot.

All the terrain is scratch-built except for some of the buildings which are printouts from Paper Tiger Armaments.

The Infantry are a mix of ESCI, Italeri, Ceasar miniatures, Plastic Soldier Company, Armoufast and Pegasus Hobbies.

The vehicles are from Armourfast, Italeri, Plastic Soldier Company and Pegasus Hobbies.

German defenders deployed somewhere in the Soviet Union

Soviet juggernaught incoming

Faux fur thatched roof.

Couple of thatched roofs made from hand towels.

Another KGN Game

Another KGN Game

Well another solo playtest anyway. I made a lot less errors this time, I remembered to track ammo use and used the to hit modifiers.

I used the same OoB as last time but changed the terrain a little bit, to give the Germans a bit of cover, it was a completely different game.

This time the Americans while not nearly wiped out, as the Germans were last game, were well over their Morale limit of 26 (29 in fact) while the Germans were at 13 of 19.

It was also an opportunity to use my new tablecloth and try out my new (to me any way) camera (still haven't figured it out completely)

The US lost 2x M10, 1x M8 Greyhound Armoured car and 1x M4A3/76(w), Their Battle group Commander, a full squad and various men from other units.

The Germans lost the PUMA, a MMG team, and a few landsers.

Terrain layout, objective is building just to left of picture center.

German position at game end.

US position at game end.

Now I have to base and paint some more US Weapons teams and radiomen.

This game highlighted the fact, that if I want to play bigger games I'll need to buy more Bazooka armed soldiers (every U.S. squad has one) and more Panzerfaust equipped Germans, at least 2xShermans, 2xpanthers, 2xMark IVs, 2xStug IIIs, a variety of German halftracks.

Hopefully I can find some good deals at the "bring and buy" at Hotlead or from the vendors there.

KGN Game Order of Battle

I figured I would post the order of battle I used in my Hold the Line game.

First the U.S. infantry division.
1 Battle group HQ
1 Supply Column
1 Forward Aid Post
1 M8 Armoured car
1 M4 Squadron 2 with 76mm cannon
2 M10 Tank Destroyers
1 Infantry Platoon
1 infantry Squad
1 medium machinegun team
1 medic
1 Forward Artillery Observer
1 High Priority Fire Mission
1 Low Priority Fire Mission

The 2 M10s and a squad stayed off as reinforcements.

The German tried attacking the following force.
1 Battlegroup HQ (Proxied the spw 251/6 with a 251/1)
1 Supply column
1 SdKfz 234/2 Puma Armoured car
1 Panzer Grenadier Platoon
1 Panzer Grenadier Squad
1 Medic
1 Squadron PzKpw IV
1 Forward Artillery Observer
2 High Priority Fire Missions

The Germans left a Mark IV, a squad and the supply column off as their required reinforcements.
 
Pulling the figures for this game made me realize that I need more specialist figures i.e radio guys, medics, dudes with Panzerfausts and that I need to finish my other Armourfast(tm) MG teams as Wehrmact and paint a few more US MG Teams.

WIP- Build up to Hotlead 2

WIP- Build up to Hotlead 2

My build up to Hotlead 2012 continues now on game design.

So I thought about what would make a good game and quick, continuous action seems to me, to be the goal. Rules are a Squad Leader miniatures conversion, scale is 1/72nd, and must accomodate 4-6 players. One big change we have made is that vehicles can not enter woods (mainly to speed up play)

Its going to be late '44 Eastern front with the Soviets on the attack.  I want the Soviets to have a lot of troops so they can take loses and keep going, their orders are "take the crossings or this" an enclosed cynide pill (last year I had a player who didn't want to lose any troops, so moved his infantry deep into a forest and did nothing else the entire game)

My initial thinking is a small German force is defending 3 river crossings (bridge and 2 fords), Soviets arrive, and fighting begins. There is little cover on the German side of the river so they have to cross over the bridge. The Soviets win if they control 2 crossings, otherwise Germans win.

Soviets enter F edge, germans row C and halfway onto D, reinforcements enter on road A3 for the Germans and roads F1 and F4

Soviet OB is 7xT34/76, 2xSU-122, 2xM3 halftracks, 2xM3a1 halftracks, up to 10 rifle squads, 2 Machine gun teams at start. German started with 4 squads 1 of which had a Panzerfaust, a Panzerschrek team 2x Sturngeschutze IIIG (Stug for Short) and a SdKfz 234/2 Puma Armoured car

I laid out some terrain (I wanted short Lines of Sight and plenty of cover), pulled some figs and vehicles and played 3 turns.

Terrain layout doesn't exactly match my map, but close enough

The Germans had lost 2 vehicles (Stug IIIG and Puma), vs. 2x T34 and a SU122 (to a panzerfaust) and the infantry were just starting to squabble.

Both side get reinforcements;
Turn 1: 3x German squads in 3 halftracks arrive, plus a SdKfz 250/1.
Turn 2: 3x Mark IVs
Turn 3: 3x T34/85s, 2xSU-85s
Turn 4: 2x Tigers
Turn 5: 2x JS II

My short playtest is encouraging, I may remove the Puma, as it can't really hurt anything's front armour and its unlikely to get a side shot, due to the terrain layout.

Fireball Forward playtest

For the last few months I rarely have been in the mood to game.

The few times I was, I couldn't be bothered as I knew it would involve a long process starting with clearing an area in which to game (holiday clutter still hanging around), then assembling my table and then another hour to ninety minutes to set up the terrain and pull the troops.

I decided it was time for a game and I was, and still am, interested in an upcoming WW2 set called "Fireball Forward" as its the same scale as Squad Leader i.e. each unit is a squad, half squad, special weapon team (Heavy machine gun, bazooka, gun crew, et al), leader, vehicle or gun. So I built some quick multi-figure bases, as my troops are singly based. There is a Infantry only play test package on their site, which includes a simple scenario, which recreates easy company's D-Day assault on a German artillery battery, as I had played the trail scenario several times I thought I would try converting the Skirmish campaign scenario Hedgerow Hell to a FBF game. I inflated the map to fill a 4'x4' table and increased the forces, and will play it a few times to balance it.

So last Friday night I did the preliminaries i.e. clear area, build table, pull terrain and troops, with the intention of spending most of Saturday play testing. Unfortunately a broken shower head saw me spend most of the day Saturday trying to find a way to fix or replace the ball joint, which I had finally done by 3 in the afternoon. I had been running around hardware stores since 10 in the morning, so I was a bit tired and only managed to get a single playing in.

The American had 1 squad and a rifle team in one platoon and a HMG and 2 rifle teams in the other platoon. The Germans had 2 platoons of 2 squads, a platoon of 1 squad and 1 rifle team , plus 2 HMG teams.

My flaky camera was acting up again so I only got a few pictures of the last turn.

Some pictures showcasing my terrain.

  

I couldn't play Sunday, my local miniatures group had our Pontic vs. Roman grudge match.

AAR - ASL with Miniatures

Miniaturised Advanced Squad Leader game

I was tiding up on my computer and found these photos from the club meeting in February which was a play test for the game we (Greg and I) ran at Hotlead 2011, and since my flaky camera was working that day, I thought I should post them.

Terrain arrangement shot

another terrain arrangement shot

If I recall correctly the scenario objective was for the the Soviets to have more victory points at game end than the Germans, points were obtained for controlling buildings, ruins, hills, killing enemy units, and for the Soviets exiting vehicles off the opposite table edge (in retrospect not likely to happen).

Soviet armour and infantry moving through the woods.

Soviet armour occupying the first hill, the one on the hill top has been acquired by enemy ordnance.

Germans holding them, at the moment.

Soviets preparing to capture their first ruined building, Germans defend the second hill.

Tigers arrive, just in time to blunt the Soviet advance.

Soviets turn the German's right flank, and some T34/85's arrive to spur the Soviet advance.

 

A close range tank duel results in many burning vehicles and dead infantry (though some of them may also be burning)

As I recall the Germans won this game, even though they lost three of the four objectives (they kept control of the house with the stone wall), the Soviets lost a lot of vehicles and infantry.

WIP - Mark IV H

I just finished building a box of The Plastic Soldier Company's Panzer IVs. I made all three tanks into H's even though I had the option of making them either IV D's, or IV G's.

I had the option of having the Tank Commander sticking out of the turret hatch, but I opted to have them all buttoned up, mainly to dissuade "clever" players saying "I'll shoot the commander since he's exposed" and "What do you mean he's buttoned up. I can see him right there!" and my favorite "Well why don't you have two models one that shows him buttoned up and another that shows him exposed"

Here they are in their Vallejo Middlestone base coat:

 They look like a nice match for my Revell Mark IV H's and J.

The flash realy shows where I missed with paint.

And even my lone ESCI Mark IV F2

I really need to raise the F2's barrel, unfortunately its glued.

Now all I need to do is camo them and get some 1/72 scale decals for them and a bunch of my Armourfast, and fast build Pegasus Hobbies and Italeri vehicles.