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.

More 15mm Poles

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Still working on my 15mm WW2 Poles for the September War, and the Christmas break has allowed me to finally finish the lancers.

I don't know what it is about cavalry, but they seem to take four times as long to finish as infantry. It must be something to do with all the horse furniture!

Anyway, here are twenty lancers from Forged in Battle which, if I say so myself, have turned out quite well.

I've also painted up four two-man anti-tank rifle teams. These are in infantry helmets, but will probably serve as dismounted cavalry as well.

These look okay on the tabletop, but haven't photographed particularly well.

Right, that's it from my painting in 2016. Plenty on the painting table that will just spill over into next year...

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.

Ferdinands from Zvezda

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Just about the last of the half-term painting, and the last of the mass of Zvezda vehicles I bought myself for my birthday in August: a couple of Ferdinand tank destroyers.

Reading up about these, I was surprised to learn that they are named after Ferdinand Porsche, the designer and how very KV of the Germans, and how early they went into service: summer 1943, making them mid- rather than late-war monsters. It's the modified version of the Ferdinand, the Elefant, that's more of a later war beast.

There were only 91 of them ever modified from the Tiger I hull, so it seems appropriate to only field two of them, and to only pay a few quid for each model...as I can't see them being used very often.

Nice models, easy to put together, easy to paint. Go Zvezda!

More Poles!

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More of the half-term painting to display.

This time it's a four-gun Polish MMG platoon for my force for the 1939 September War.

These are actually a mix of Forged in Battle and Battlefront figures. I happened to have acquired a pack of each, so chose the figures I liked best from both. For example, the FiB MMGs come separately as nice chunky individual weapons, which I like, whereas the Battlefront one come with the tripod and shooter as one piece and the gun barrel as another. The Battlefront faces, however, being more detailed, paint up better, and some of the FiB foot are in very strange poses. A mixture of the best of both is definitely the right solution.

Incidentally, I've painted four MMGs rather than three required for an infantry HMG platoon only so that they can, if necessary, proxy for a typical four-gun cavalry HMG platoon, despite the lack of cavalry Adrienne helmets. I might get around to painting a separate cavalry HMG platoon, but I've already got to find tchanka figures and, if you look closely, the leader in the top right corner of each base is actually wearing an Adrienne cavalry helmet. Hopefully no-one will notice!

Quick German Armoured Cars

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In addition to trying to get my Poles up to strength, I'm also bulking out some of the forces needed to oppose them.

Here are a couple of quick German armoured cars (pun most definitely intended): two SdKfz 222s.

These are Zvezda models, so plastic and snap together. They go together very easily, paint up well, and are half the cost of a resin or metal model.

Now I've already got two lovely Battlefront 222s which have seen quite a bit of usage on the tabletop, so these two new models will let me field (should I ever need to: having eight armoured cars scooting around the tabletop might be a bit much...but then there's always a recce troop scenario to plan for!) the 222 element of an entire light armoured car platoon.

Anyway, nice models: well done Zvezda.

Some More Poles Painted

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With the half-term hols upon us, I've taken the chance to finish a few figures that have been sitting on the painting table for far too long.

First up are a few additions to my early war Polish army:  the HQ mortars and a selection of Big Men.

I'm trying to concentrate on the Poles at the moment, as I need to have enough of them done to start playtesting the scenarios in my forthcoming September War scenario pack. That's a collusion between Anatoli and I, and should, when finished, contain 55 separate Poland 1939 scenarios for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum. Scenarios 1-19 are written already, so just need to playtest them and get some photography done at the same time (which is why I can't use proxies).

Finally, I also got around to painting the Warbases 15mm Pegasus Bridge bunker. Nice little model: it's my paint job that's uninspiring! And the pic is a bit blurred too!