A great after action report from Iain Fuller from his excellent Tracks and Threads blog.
A new wargaming shed is christened as Iain and friends lead a force of Canadians against the Germans in Normandy.
Click on the pic below to read all:
Tony Cane has been working his way through the Operation Compass scenario pack for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum. His last post featured the tank battle at Mechili, this one covers the Australian attack on the Italian aerodrome at Siret el Chrieba.
Here, the Australians are faced by a huge expanse of open ground (“flat as a table and devoid of cover” as the official history puts it) dotted with the occasional hanger or building. Their target is to take the hangar and buildings on the other side of the open ground.
Click on the picture below to see how they do...
Loving the aircraft hanger and the dust-covered Blinds!
James Mantos posted a few photos of his latest game of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum onto the IABSM Facebook page.
It's action on the eastern front: click on the pic below to see all:
You can also check out James' blog here.
Ton Cane and friends recently fought the Mechili scenario from the Operation Compass pack using 10mm miniatures.
The game is a tank-vs-tank battle, with the Italians actually attacking for a change.
Click on the picture below to see how the game went:
It's been far too long since we saw one of Mark Luther's amazing 6mm IABSM after action reports...but I'm pleased to be able to say that the drought is over.
Mark played one of my scenarios - Wave Goodbye - taken from the 2011 TFL Summer Special: a French armor counterattack is hitting the flank of a German panzer column in an area east of the Ardennes in May 1940.
Click on the pic below to see all:
A very quick battle report from James Manto, taken from the IABSM Facebook Group.
Here, James gets a chance to get all his lovely new Soviet stuff onto the tabletop for the first time.
Click on the pic below to see all.
Those of you who live in the UK may be aware that the Wyevale Garden Centres always sell off their winter model Christmas trees in early January (see previous post here). This year, I’d taken full advantage of the sale and bought several packets worth, and then added a new snow mat from Tiny Wargames to put them on. Now all I needed was an excuse to get everything onto the tabletop, and a game this Saturday just gone gave me the opportunity to do so.
As I seemed to have bought lots of trees, it would need to be a big game. Out came the extra bit of table, giving me an 8’ by 5’ playing area, on went the new mat, and on went the new trees. The result: a winter wonderland of epic proportions.
This was to be a Soviet/German encounter battle set sometime in and around January 1944. As I found myself short of time in the preparation stages, I used the troop lists from one of the scenarios from the IABSM Bashnya or Bust scenario pack. A couple of the scenarios give listings of a re-inforced company for each side from which the players pick a number of platoons. As this was to be a big game, I used those lists but gave each side the entire list, not just a proportion of the list.
See how we got on by clicking on the picture, below...
I'm very pleased to announce that the third in the series of early war handbooks for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum, Blitzkrieg in the West: the Low Countries, is now available from the TFL website.
The handbook is 88 pages long (bigger than either the French or BEF books) and contains two separate sections: one on the Belgian army of 1940, and one on the Dutch army of 1940.
The Belgian section contains sixteen separate lists covering everything from the Active divisions through to the Cavalry and then on to the Chasseurs Ardennais and Border Guards. There's also a section on the forts and bunkers positioned along the Belgian border.
The Dutch section contains seventeen separate lists covering everything from the First Line divisions through to the Light and Peel divisions through to the three independent brigades, the cavalry and the various territorial commands. There's also a short section on the defence of the main airfields and another on the defence of Rotterdam.
Both the Belgian and Dutch sections contain a lot of background information, so the handbook should be very useful for players of other game systems as well.
And don't forget the other two handbooks that are already available:
As one review on the TFL website says about the BEF handbook:
Picked this up this morning – I got the French one last month. Absolutely brilliant resource that I really look forward to using. Can’t wait for the German one. *****
Jonathan
I was browsing the 'net, as one does, and came across David Burden's excellent blog Converj.
On there was an equally excellent account of his first game of IABSM: a solo game split across four or five posts and using the North of Caen scenario from the rulebook.
I hope he doesn't mind (as I haven't found a way of e-mailing him) but I've merged his posts into one AAR for you all to enjoy.
Click on the pic below to see all, and make sure you visit David's blog to see the other good stuff on there.
Just in case people were wondering why it's all still been a bit quiet on here lately, it's because I'm still working hard on the series of Blitzkrieg in the West theatre books for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum.
The French and BEF handbooks are already available from the TooFatLardies website, and I'm pleased to announce that the handbook covering the Low Countries - Belgium and the Netherlands - should be available to buy right after the Easter Bank Holiday weekend i.e. Tuesday next week, 3rd April.
The handbook is 88 pages long (bigger than either the French or BEF books) and contains two separate sections: one on the Belgian army of 1940, and one on the Dutch army of 1940.
The Belgian section contains 16 separate lists covering everything from the Active divisions through to the Cavalry and then on to the Chasseurs Ardennais and Border Guards. There's also a section on the forts and bunkers positioned along the Belgian border.
The Dutch section contains 17 separate lists covering everything from the First Line divisions through to the Light and Peel divisions through to the three independent brigades, the cavalry and the various territorial commands. There's also a short section on defending the airfields and another on the defence of Rotterdam.
Both the Belgian and Dutch sections contain a lot of background information, so the handbook should be useful for players of other game systems as well.
So don't buy that extra Easter egg: save your money for Tuesday morning and a trip to the Low Countries!
Great battle report from the Small Sagas blog featuring a game using one of the Normandy scenarios included in the IABSM v3 rulebook to an encounter on the eastern front.
Click on the pic below to see all...
Here's a great looking battle report from the Devon Wargames Group, playing the Over the Hill scenario produced as a free PDF download by Rich Clarke the author and co-partner of Too Fat Lardies during the early incarnation of the rule set and easily converted to the latest version of the rules.
The scenario along with others is available to download from the Lardies Yahoo Group, which is well worth joining if you are interested in the best WWII Company level rule sets available!
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Toofatlardies/info
Click on the pic below to see all:
Here's a great solo AAR from James Mantos' excellent Rabbits In My Basement blog.
Inspired by reading the Cinderella Campaign and the dash across France in Sept 1944, featuring the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, James plays a Sherman-heavy assault on a German position.
Click on the pic below to see more:
One of the great things about the IABSM Facebook page is that it encourages people to post a few photos and comments about their games, even if they don't have the time to write up a full AAR.
Sometimes, however, all the various bits and pieces posted on FB about a particular game add up to what is effectively a full AAR: a group effort if you like!
Mike Whitaker, for example, posted a note about an incredibly lucky shot in a recent club game: an Elefant spotted despite cover, distance and the weather, and then dispatched by a single shell from a 17pdr, despite a considerable difference in Strike and Armour values.
The German player, Gary Martin, then replied: giving an outline of what happened in the rest of the game. Put the two together, and Lord Salisbury's your uncle...
Click on the picture below to see how I've stitched the various posts and pictures together into an AAR.
Here's a quick AAR from James Tree, taken from the IABSM Facebook page, featuring a recent eastern front game of IABSM played solo.
The Germans are defending a village as the Soviets move in for the attack. Click on the pic below to see who will triumph.
Here's a quick battle report from Ioannis Pavlidis, take from a recent post on the IABSM Facebook page.
It's 1941. A unit of Soviet soldiers has fallen back in disarray in the face of the overwhelming German assault. The German spearhead has now moved on, leaving a force behind to mop up the battered Soviets, who have fallen back to an abandoned barracks not far from the Niemirov Ferry crossing.
Click on the picture below to find out what happened.
I'm very happy to announce that Blitzkrieg in the West: The BEF, the second of the series of theatre handbooks covering the early war in the West is now available. It covers the British Expeditionary Force from 1939 to the fall of France in 1940. Designed primarily for use with IABSM v3, the handbook will still prove useful to all players of WW2 company-sized wargames.
This incredibly detailed guide to British forces, written by me, is 75 pages in size and is packed with data, including the following British forces:
With additional sections on the Second British Expeditionary Force, other British independent formations, fielding British forces, rating your forces and a comprehensive armoury.
Just in case people were wondering why it's all been a bit quiet on here lately, it's because I've been working hard on the series of Blitzkrieg in the West theatre books for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum.
The French handbook is already available from the TooFatLardies website, and I'm pleased to announce that the handbook covering the British Expeditionary Force should be available to buy on Thursday this week, 1st March.
Covering everything from the Regulars to the Territorials, from the Pioneers to the Searchlights, the BEF handbook will give you everything you need to field a British force in May/June 1940. There's a lot of background info too, so the handbook should be useful for players of other game systems as well.
Fellow Lardie Desmondo Darkin takes his panzers for a spin in the first scenario from the Bashnya or Bust! scenario pack set against Operation Bagration in 1944.
See how he gets along by clicking on the picture, below...
Those of you who are on Facebook might be interested in the Charlie Don't Surf group that I've just joined. It's been around since July last year but, I must confess, I've only just found out about it.
As a reminder, you can also find an I Ain't Been Shot, Mum group on Facebook as well. Click on the name to go straight there.
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
If you have enjoyed visiting this site, please add a link to it on your own wargaming blog: www.vislardica.com.
