We haven't had a battle report from Mr Luther for a couple of weeks now, so here's a slice of Eastern Front action as the Soviets push forward against determined German panzerjaeger opposition.
Click on the pic to see all:
Here's an after action report from the game of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! that I played this weekend just gone.
It's the Pacific Theatre, 1945, with a company of US Marines, along with supporting Amtracks, tasked with assaulting a Japanese-held beach on a small island in the middle of nowhere.
Click on the pic to see all...
Regular readers will know that I recently painted up a company of Landing Vehicle, Tanks (or Amtracks) as part of an attempt to satisfy a friend's craving for a bit of War in the Pacific action. Planning the game, I realised that I only had three Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP) to accompany the Amtracks into action, but had a box of another three buried somewhere in the lead mountain.
I still had a whole week to go before the game (it was today: cracking game, AAR on here tomorrow or Monday) so thought I could just about get them done in time. I'd already painted three, so another three should be relatively simple.
Well, yes, in theory, but I had, of course, forgotten that Battlefront aren't interested in the Pacific War any more, so have let the molds go to wrack and ruin whilst they concentrate on Team Yankee. Never have I seen do much flash on so few models in a box set...and whilst I can clean them up in an hour or so, it was still an hour of painting time wasted.
Worse, one of the strips of infantry was missing: a real pain as there was no way I could get a replacement in time.
I know Battlefront are great and all that, and a huge part of my collection comes from them, but it's things like the above that make you just go "grrrrrr" and do everything you can to support their competition.
Anyhow, I cleaned up the figures, substituted spare truck-passenger figures for the missing strip (see if you can spot them!) and got the little craft done in time.
Lovely models but, please Battlefront, if you're going to go all "the Hobby" on us, get your basic quality control right first!
Here's a quick battle report from first time player Konstantinos, running a solo game to work through the rules.
It's Greeks versus Italians in 10mm in 1940.
I'm liking the way the terrain has been put together: some good ideas for a quick way to make up a table.
Click on the pic on the right to see all...
Joe Patchen and his friends play out the third sample scenario given in the IABSM v3 rulebook: Action at Galmanche.
It's Normandy, 1944. Click on the pic below to see if the Brits can force their way through the German defence.
Last time I asked one of my regular gaming group what he fancied playing next time we got together, he said that he'd very much like to do an amphibious assault in the Pacific. That, at the time, was a bit of a "no can do, amigo", so we ended up getting as close to it as I could with the Gela game that you can read about here.
The request, however, stuck with me. I had Americans, I had Japanese...all I needed was an island and some of the specialist landing equipment that the Marines used.
As is so often the case, that great supermarket that is Salute provided all. I picked up a beachfront gaming mat and, at incredibly cheap prices, the Gator's Amtracks boxset and a box of another three American landing craft. With the promised game looming (next week) it was time to build and paint up the Amtracks.
When I first opened the box set, I was, to put it blankly, deeply impressed. The box contains seven hulls, and fourteen top decks, allowing you to build either the LVT A(1) version with the Stuart turret (37mm gun) or the LVT A(4) version with the HWC M8 turret (75mm gun)...with the two top decks being interchangeable meaning that you could field one to seven of each vehicle in any particular game. Now that, I thought, is a well thought out, good value offering: jolly well done Battlefront.
I still think that, but unfortunately have to give Battlefront full marks for the intention but a much, much lower score for the execution :(
Now I'm not a brilliant modeler, but I can build most 15mm kits, and can even drill and pin large walkers together so that they stand up unassisted. I have built a thousand tanks, quite a few buildings, a handful of aircraft, loads of sci-fi stuff...you name it...and I've built kits based on resin, metal, plastic, wood...you get the picture.
Could I get the top decks of these Amtracks to fit into the hulls? Could I bollocks, if you'll excuse the expression.
They just don't bloody fit.
As I don't have some kind of rotary grinder thing (how careless of me!) I had to file and carve, and carve and file, and eventually just goddamn-well hammer the decks into place, with resultant cracked hulls, damaged tracks etc.
They just don't bloody fit, I say again!
I ended up abandoning my happy thoughts of having fourteen decks interchangeable on seven hulls, and knock together a platoon of three A(1)s, a platoon of three A(4)s and a command A(1). No interchanging: all firmly hammered/glued/green-stuffed into place.
Okay, so they look good, and I still have seven cracking vehicles, but I haven't got what I was offered, and I'm miffed. Anyway, buy at your own peril, and here's my finished tanks:
Oh, and the box doesn't come with any decals either: I had to find them all from spares...but I'm just being narky now!
Here's a quick photographic battle report from Burt Minorrot's excellent, Spanish-language "Burt's Stuff" blog.
As the title suggests, there's a ruined factory to be fought over. Click on the pic below to see all.
Another great I Ain't Been Shot, Mum battle report from Mark Luther: more 6mm action on the eastern front.
Click on the pic below to see all...
For those of you who haven't spotted it yet, there's now a Facebook group devoted to I Ain't Been Shot, Mum.
The group already has 200 members, so promises to be a good place to swap info, ask rules questions etc.
As an example of the sort of content that's on there, Paul Beccas has posted a short video report of his first game of IABSM, which you can also watch below...
It's also quite a good site on which to place mini-AAR, such as Sigur Skwarl's four pictures from his first game of IABSM, using the first scenario from the rulebook:
Great little battle report from Mike Whitaker, who is trying out his concept of IABSM Lite.
You can read about it on his blog Trouble at T'Mill by clicking on its name, or here on Vis Lardica by clicking on the picture, below.
Here's another battle report from the archives of Burt Minorrot's excellent Spanish-language blog Las Partidas de Burt, which I usually translate as Burt's Stuff.
In this game, the Soviets try and kick the Germans out of a town on the eastern front, with the action shot in black and white. Click on the pic, below, to see all.
A great looking I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! after action report from James Mantos' excellent Rabbits in my Basement blog.
Click on the link to James' blog, above, or on the pic, below, to see all:
The TFL Specials are a great source of inspiration and scenarios. Here, Charles Eckart plays through Mike Brian's scenario from the 2005 Summer Special: The Initiation of Dashwood-Brown.
It's Normandy, 1944. Suave ladies-man Captain Royston Dashwood-Brown and his men of 6th Dorsetshire Regiment are about to get their first taste of action on the battlefields of France.
Click on the map, below, to see how they did...
Another great picture-led AAR from Norseygamer, who is once again playing his way through the Bashnya or Bust! scenario pack.
First game in the campaign is Scenario #01: Near Osen, a largely tank-only tussle for control of a vital bridge.
Click on the pic below to see all:
My chosen scenario for Operation Market Larden 2017 (the TFL games day held in Evesham each year) was scenario #06 from the Poland 1939 supplement, The September War: Wegierska Gorka.
Taking place between 2nd and 3rd September 1939, the battle for Węgierską Górką, or the “Hungarian Height”, took place near the Polish-Slovak border and was fought between Polish mountain troops and German infantry. The Polish position included a number of anti-tank bunkers overlooking the valley below, and was therefore of significant strategic importance.
Here are the two AARs from the day: one game in the morning, one game in the afternoon. Click on the pic for all. My thanks to Noddy, Ty, Bob and Vlad for making it a great day's gaming.
Back in January 2015 I put together a quick game for the lads from Benson featuring a fictional action on the Dunkirk perimeter. Set, obviously, in 1940, some plucky British defenders attempt to hold back the German tide. Click here to see that AAR.
Mark Luther read that battle report, and put on his own version of the game. Click on the picture below to see how it turned out:
Here's a cracking AAR from the Norseygamer blog: scenario #5M: Near Bashnya from the Bashnya or Bust! scenario pack.
The Germans have their backs against the wall: well, Bashnya's walls to be exact. Here they attempt to stop the Soviet advance one last time.
Click on the pic below to see all:
As people seemed to like yesterday's modern AAR, taken from Mark Kinsey's excellent blog Daddy's Little Men, here's another in the same vein.
This time, we go further back in time to Historicon 2010, where Mark and friends are running a game based on the battle of Chetequera: part of Operation Reindeer, which began on 4 May 1978, and was South Africa's second major military operation in Angola, carried out under the Apartheid regime. This phase of the South African operation consisted of an assault by 2 South African Infantry Battalion on two South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) base complexes, Chetequera and Dombondola, near to the then-South West Africa/Angola border.
Click on the pic below to see all:
Here's an historical AAR I've been wanting to post for some time: Mark Kinsey and Jon Yuengling's Cassinga game for Fall In 2013.
The Battle of Cassinga took place on 4th May 1978 during the South African Border War. The battle involved South African forces raiding a suspected SWAPO base at Cassinga, Angola and, covered in the game below, the intervention of a Cuban armoured force operating out of the nearby Techamutete village.
The game was played using a combination of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! and B'Maso!, the latter being the Wars in Africa 1950-99 supplement for IABSM.
Click on the picture below to see how this great game played out:
Re-played the Battle of Benson Sealion game on Saturday, this time playing the Germans rather than the Brits.
Click on the pic below to see all:
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)
Welcome to Vis Lardica, a not-for-profit website mostly dedicated to the company-sized wargaming rules produced by the TooFatLardies, but encompassing my other gaming interests as well.
If you need to contact me, you can do so at:
vislardica@gmail.com
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