IABSM AAR: The Shattered Town

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Great battle report for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! from Joe Patchen featuring a German assault on an American held town.

Click on the picture below to see the whole thing:

Incidentally, this AAR hasn't appeared elsewhere on the web: Joe sent me the images and words to be loaded specifically onto the Vis Lardica site. Anyone else who wants to do the same for any of the TFL company-sized games (IABSM, CDS, Q13) should feel free to follow suit. Prompt service guaranteed! E-mail me at admin@vislardica.com with the "deets" (as my daughters would say).

IABSM AAR: North of Caen

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Recently, Martin981463 posted the text of an IABSM after action report onto the TFL Yahoo Group. He also popped the pictures to accompany the words into the Group's photos section.

I hope he doesn't mind, but I've joined the two together in the AAR that you can reach by clicking on the picture below. That way, you can see words and pics together.

It looks like an excellent game of IABSM, unusually fought in what looks like 28mm scale. Click below to see all:

TFL January Sale

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News from the front: the TooFatLardies are having a January Sale. Here's what Rich said on Lard Island News:

"It wouldn’t be January without a Sale, and this month we have not one but two great deals on offer.  Firstly we have all of the Sharp Practice range available at 35% off list price, that’s the rules in hard copy or PDF format and all of the supplements.  You can find them on our web site here:  Sharp Practice

"Secondly, we have a focus this month on I Ain’t Been Shot Mum, our hugely popular Company sized rules for the Second World War.  The rules and all of the huge range of supplements are available at 20% off for the rest of January.  Our IABSM products are listed here:  IABSM

"There’s never been a better time to get hold of two Lardy classics!"

You can click on the titles in bold to go straight to the TFL online shop.

The Soviet 203mm Howitzer from Battlefront

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One of the great things about Battlefront is the huge range of models they produce, even if sometimes the vehicle or gun that the models are based on only fought in one particular theatre or weren't produced in very large numbers. 

Their recent Berlin supplement and its related new releases contain many good examples, one of which is the giant Soviet 203mm howitzer: something that, showing appropriate restraint, I ordered as soon as it hit the streets.

This thing is a monster. It's also easy to put together, easy to paint, and looks absolutely cracking. A very worthwhile addition to the arsenal!

15% Off Sale at the TooFatLardies

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For those who need to buy some more Lardy products (cough, my scenario books, cough*), Rich is running a 15% off sale over at the main TooFatLardies webstore. You can get there by clicking here.

Not sure how long the sale will last: Rich says until he's finished the Xmas Special...so Easter then!

*all my scenario books are updated for IABSMv3...and if you don't fancy them, there's always Q13!


Gebirgsjaeger: 15mm Opel Maultier

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Earlier this year I added Waugh Games to the list of WW2 figure manufacturers. If you remember (assuming you follow this blog fairly regularly) I ordered three Opel Maultier from them at the bargain basement price of £2.50 each: under half the cost of the Battlefront equivalent. I've now had a chance to paint them up, giving my Gebirgsjaeger a bit of additional transport.

So, how did they turn out?

The first thing to point out is that they come with a HUGE base built in i.e. on one side of the truck the base sticks out at least an inch; on the other, at least a centimetre. I'm not sure why they come like this, but they do. Here's the picture from their website that shows what I mean.

The other thing the picture shows is the holes in the resin: you can see a big one on the door, and lots of little ones in the main body's wooden panels.

Well, I could do something about the bases - snapping them off to a decent distance from the tracks wasn't too difficult - but I decided to ignore the resin bubble holes: far too fiddly to fiddle with.

A black undercoat was followed by an all-over coat of a medium dark grey. I then dry-brushed the canvas top in a lighter grey, then  dry-brushed both canvas and body with white. The windscreen and other glass was dark blue and then my (only slightly successful) attempt at a glare effect. The tracks were my usual gunmetal covered with flesh wash. Here they are:

As you can see, the resin holes aren't really significant: they just look like wear and tear. The bases are still a bit thick, and aren't very even...but that won't show on the tabletop either. The only real disappointment is the bit between the tracks and the main body paneling: there's a big resin bulge that looks like, well, a big resin bulge.

In all, however, not bad for £2.50 a time. The old adage that you gets what you pays for has certainly held true! 

 

IABSM AAR: Les Attacques

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Vaggelis has begun playing his way through the Defence of Calais scenario pack, beginning  with scenario #01:  Les Attacques.

It is May 1940, and with British troops being evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk, the ancient port of Calais stands on the critical western flank of the Anglo-French lines. In a desperate bid to shore up this flank, Churchill has committed the British 30th Infantry Brigade to defend Calais to the last...

Click on the picture below to see the full AAR:

IABSM AAR: Action in the Far East: Ban Sadao

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Cracking game of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! at the weekend, with a scenario from the Fall of the Lion Gate scenario pack.

See if the British can stop the Japanese advance into Malaya at the village of Ban Sadao. Click on the picture below to see the whole report.

Ruined Buildings from Commission Figurines

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One of my purchases at Warfare were some of Commission Figurines 15mm ruined buildings in laser-cut wood.

I was quite excited by these, so let one of them jump to the head of the painting queue, and knocked it up in a few hours late on Sunday.

This particular building, Konig Strasse, is easy to put together: four walls slot together and then mount onto the four pavement pieces if pavement is required.

Painting was pretty simple too: I painted the whole thing orange, then put a very heavy black ink wash over the top. Once that was dry, I dry-brushed very lightly in orange again, and then in a bone colour to bring up the relief. The doors I did in brown, the pavement in three shades of grey. The interior I just painted all grey, with no washing or dry-brushing.

I'm very pleased with the result, and can't wait to build the others. I think they'll do for any big city: Berlin, Stalingrad and even sci-fi...and at £13 for the one below, quite good value too.

IABSM AAR: German Recon Breakthrough

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The Wasatch Front Historical Gaming Society (WFHGS) produce an excellent quarterly, free, full color wargames journal available to download from their site, called Warning Order.

Each issue of Warning Order features battle reports from their Friday night games, reviews of board games, figures, and gaming products, gaming analysis, and several regular features plus an editorial.

It's a very good read: I particularly like the regular Memoirs of a Miniatures & Board Wargamer and Blast from the Past columns...which shows you what an old fogey I'm becoming! The reviews are always useful as well.

Here's a IABSM battle report from the Spring 2015 edition (#40). Click on the pic of the front cover to see it.

IABSM AAR: Radekhov Station

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A nice little battle report from Mark Luther dating back from 2010.

Click on the picture to see all.

I have noticed a dearth of AARs for the TFL company-sized games (IABSM, CDS or Q13) out there on the net at the moment.

Don't forget that the offer is always open to post any reports you might have up here on Vis Lardica: just send me in the words and the pictures and I'll do the rest.

In the meantime, plenty of content to browse on here: over 250 AARs and growing fast!

 

IABSM AAR: Pouppeville

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Superb After Action Report from Carojon featuring a game  based on one of the scenarios in the All American scenario pack.

The tiny village of Pouppeville covered the end of one of the four designated exits from Utah beach on D-Day, so members of the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were dropped behind Utah beach to help in the clearing and securing of the area prior to the landing of the seaborne troops.

See how they do by clicking on the picture, below: