IABSM AAR: Soviet Advance 1944

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Another great AAR lifted from the "Burt's Stuff" blog, which can be visited by clicking here.

The Soviets are advancing forward as part of Operation Bagration, the Germans have scraped together a kampfgruppe to stop them. Click on the pic below to see all:

Once again I feel honour bound to point out that I haven't been able to get hold of Burt to check he's happy for me to translate his work onto the Vis Lardica site. I hope, when he does find out, that he doesn't object, and realises that I am only trying to give his work greater coverage, and to make the VL site as complete an archive of the TFL company-sied games as possible.

IABSM AAR: Lisok 1944 by Vaggelis

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Fellow Lardy Vaggelis ran a 10mm participation game of IABSM at this year's Strategikon, which seems to have gone down very well with everyone who played.

His excellent blog, Wargames & History, where this AAR first appeared, can be visited by clicking here.

And you can also read the AAR on this site by clicking on the picture, below:

IABSM AAR: Nieuwkerk in 6mm

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I'm still working my way through uploading all of Mark Luther's excellent 6mm IABSM battle reports.

For those who haven't had a look, please do so now:  Mark's tables could almost be taken as photographs of the action portrayed. Ridiculously good looking!

Mark is adding new AARs to his Flickr album all the time, obviously trying to stay ahead of me, but here's the latest of my uploads: Nieuwkerk. Click on the pic to see all:

Wanted: 15mm Polish Taczankas

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As I get to the end of actually writing the Polish campaign book for IABSM, it's time to start finishing off my Polish army so that proper play-testing can begin.

I've got my infantry (Battlefront), and most of my cavalry (Forged in Battle), and what armour I need is readily available (Battlefront mostly, I think). The only thing I can't find anywhere is a Polish Taczanka i.e. the purpose-built cart to carry an MMG.

Both Battlefront and Peter Pig do Soviet taczankas...but they are very different, much heavier, than the Polish versions. They also have four horses, whereas the Polish version had three horses.

True North, via Old Glory, do a "Polish" taczanka, but having bought four, I can tell you that the cart is all wrong, it has four horses, no-one to fire the machine gun, and the sitting figures are horrible. QRF and Outpost both do Poles, but neither has a taczanka in their listings.

So...help!

Where can I find 15mm models of the Polish taczanka? Is there anyone out there who does one? Here are a few pics to help jog the memory:

A Quick AAR

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As those of you who are regular visitors know, I like to think of this site as a bit of an archive for battle reports for the company-sized games produced by the TooFatLardies (IABSM, CDS, Q13 and their variants).

Many people now just send me in their reports direct, or drop me a line to let me know they've just posted a new AAR for me to lift from their blog or website. I always link to where I get the content from, so hopefully it's all mutually beneficial and generally promoting the cause of Lard...which means more potential opponents and therefore more potential games.

It's certainly not about money. For those interested, the 2-3 ad sites on Vis Lardica have been up and running for about nine months now, and have so far returned about enough revenue to buy a single battlefront tank, and a small one at that.

It's also great to see how other people have handled the games from the specials and scenario packs that you've played (or in my case often written!) yourself: seeing what they did when faced by the same situation.

I always try and get permission to lift content from other sites, but sometimes that's quite hard to get: not because of resistance (most people are very happy to help me grow the Lard!) but because of a lack of available content details or difficulties in communication because of language.

So here's a very quick AAR from Burt, from his excellent Spanish-language blog Las Partidas de Burt, which I'm going to translate as "Burt's Stuff". I have tried to get in contact with him to check he and the photographer are happy for the lift, but so far to no avail. Let's hope they are, as there's lots of good stuff on the site just aching for a wider audience.

You can visit his site by clicking on its name, above, and read the report by clicking on the picture, below.

IABSM AAR: Village Defense by Algiz

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Fellow Lardy Algiz runs a Russian-language blog called All the King's Horses and All the King's Men covering the various wargames he and his friends play. You can visit his blog by clicking on its name, above.

He recently played an eastern front  game of IABSM involving the Germans defending a village in the face of Soviet assault, and has written a lovely battle report to go with the many pictures.  

I haven't been able to get hold of Algiz to ask his permission, so I hope he doesn't mind that I have used Google plus my own writing skills to translate his report into something easier to read than a raw Google Translate translation. I'd love to hear from him to confirm he's okay with that...and to find out what mostochka are, as my previous source on all things Russian is now, unfortunately, unavailable.

Click on the pic, below, to see all.

Incidentally, for those interested, this is the first AAR written using the blog function that I've switched to in the face of lack of available webpages (see post Page Limit Panic!, below).

IABSM AAR: Christmas in the Ardennes

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'Twas the week before Christmas, and I was off to Benson for the last game of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum of the year with John, Dave and Bevan. 

The battle would take place in the Ardennes as part of the Battle of the Bulge. A strong motorised force of Germans was thrusting forward aiming to capture a fuel dump that would provide them with the petrol needed to drive to the channel ports. In their way was a company of Shermans, supported by infantry occupying a small town, and expecting reinforcements from nearby British troops.

Click on the picture, below, to see all...and the AAR contains complete briefings for each side allowing you to play the game yourselves.

IABSM AAR: Vacqueville '44

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As we sit and wait for the 2016 Xmas Special, much delayed by the slings and arrows that outrageous fortune insists on hurling in Rich's direction, Mike Whitaker provides a timely reminder of how useful the specials are a source of inspiration with a rather nice little battle report taken from Nick Skinner's Vacqueville '44 scenario from the Summer 2014 edition.

For those who haven't dipped their toes in any of the specials, I would highly recommend that you do: vast, very inexpensive, collections of ideas for all the TFL games that would easily translate to other systems. An index of all articles that have ever appeared in a special can be found by clicking here. You can buy any or all of the specials from here.

To see Mike's AAR, click on the picture below, or visit his blog by clicking here.

15mm Sturmtiger from Zvezda

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You've got to hand it to Zvezda.

Of all the vehicles they could have released to compete in the WW2 wargaming marketplace, they release the Sturmtiger: a vehicle that no wargamer could possibly want more than one of (except for Kev: he needs loads). They only built nineteen of the damn things anyway.

But release it they have, and bought one I have...probably to use as some kind of objective or objective marker.

It's a nice model: easily up to Zvezda's usual high standards. Paints up well. As I said, the only problem is finding an excuse to actually get it onto the tabletop.

Here's a couple of shots of mine:

IABSM AAR: Surprise Encounter Northwest of Rossienie by Mark Luther

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Ages since we had an AAR from Mr Luther: so here's one that dates back to June 2014.

A 6mm game played at Gigabites Café, the battle represents the Soviet counterattack by the tanks of the 2nd Tank Division, 3rd Mechanised Corps on June 24th, 1941 near Rossienie, Lithuania.

Clicl on the pic, above, to see lots of really big Soviet tanks in action!

Mounted Scouts

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Here's a first for me: some mounted scouts for my WW2 Germans.

These are to join my 1939 Germans as they invade Poland as part of the play-testing of my forthcoming Poland in Flames scenario pack. I'm currently on #25 out of #55, so powering ahead!

The figures are from Peter Pig, and I had forgotten what a pleasure Mr Pig's minis are to paint, even if you are only a mediocre painter such as myself.

The great thing is that the figures are so detailed and have so many packs and saddlebags, that even if you just block paint everything and then pop a wash on, then they come up brilliantly.

These are the two 8-man squads I need as infantry mounted scouts. Almost tempted to get some more now just for the craic!

IABSM AAR: The Biggest Bloomin' Convoy by Mike Whitaker

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Another great battle report from Mike Whitaker: this time featuring, as the title suggests, the biggest bloomin' convoy ever!

I'm a huge fan of tail (no sniggering at the back there), so to see such a huge collection of transport on the table at the same time warms the cockles of my heart!

Click on the picture to see the whole thing and, as I said in my last post, you can visit Mike's Trouble at T'Mill blog by clicking here.

Keep those battle reports coming in, by the way: plenty of room on the site for more!

IABSM AAR: Bashnya or Bust #4C: Holm (The Llardiff Game)

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This report is from the game played on October 15th 2016 at the first ever TFL Llardiff Games Day that took place at Firestorm Games in Cardiff.

The idea of this games day was that gamers not necessarily familiar with TFL products could come and have a go at a variety of different games, getting a taste of Lard and then hopefully coming back for more.

I was tasked with showcasing I Ain't Been Shot, Mum!, and told that I should prepare for a series of different players dipping in and out throughout the day, with my efforts focused on setting up and umpiring one game in the morning and one game in the afternoon.

Hmmm, I thought, multiple players dipping in and out: my favourite - not! No matter: Lard calls and I answer...so I decided to bring to Cardiff one of the larger (if not the largest) games from my Bashnya or Bust! scenario pack: scenario #4C, Holm.

This is a late war game where a battalion of Soviet infantry (and remember IABSM is a company-sized game!) supported by just a few tanks tries to overrun a German force defending a small village on the Kaunas front. 

Click on the picture to see all the action.