IABSM AAR: Royal Tanks

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I have been trying to use scenarios other than those I've written myself, so my latest game of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! featured a game taken from the TFL Summer Special 2005 based on the Royal Tanks scenario adapted from Skirmish Campaigns by Tom Ballou.

The game was quite short:  involving me being completely tactically outsmarted and looking certain to lose until a sudden and very major reverse turned the tables on my opponent with devastating effect...on both his chances of winning and his temper!

Click on the picture below to see all:

IABSM AAR: Leningrad Lend-Lease

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Another excellent battle report from Joe Patchen: this time set on the Eastern Front in 1942. 

It's July 1942 and the Russians need to break the siege of Leningrad. A new batch of brand new American lend-lease armor has made its way through  U-boat infested waters to Murmansk and down by rail to the battle area. Into the maelstrom it is thrown...click on the picture below to see all.



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:

SU-100 Tank Destroyers from Battlefront

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I've been wanting to get some Soviet SU-100 tank killers for some time. I've had the lesser SU-85s for ages...but, frankly, they are so last season...and I just wanted the ones with the bigger guns...and I wanted them now! The trouble was, I didn't fancy shelling out for the metal versions at £8-£9 a time.

Fortunately Battlefront came to my rescue with the release of their box set allowing you to build five plastic SU-100s for the princely sum of £23.40 or £4.68 per model.

Now I actually quite like plastic tanks. Yes, nothing beats the heft of a decent metal or metal-and-resin tank, but the relative pricing (allowing you to build big units), incredible detail, and the way that they paint up make plastics a very viable option. I'd almost go as far as to say I prefer plastic tanks:  try dropping a plastic and a metal tank and see which one survives better!

The box set comes with all sorts of options, including just what I wanted: five SU-100s.

The kits go together very easily (less than 5 minutes a tank) and paint up very well indeed. These were done with an undercoat/basecoat of Army Painter spray, washed with GW Agrax Earthshade, then highlighted with one of lighter GW greens...Loren Forest IIRC. I put together, painted and based all five in about four hours in all.

Excellent value, great kits:  which is a good thing as I have another box of them to do for the Egyptians for the Six Day War!

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: