The September War: #01 Chojnice...Twice

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Barring major disasters, The September War, my new scenario pack for IABSM containing 33 scenarios from the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, should be published tomorrow, Wednesday 15th March 2017.

The September War  is largely based on Alexander Kawczynski's supplement for another rule system, but with the scenarios fully adapted for IABSM. As usual with my packs, each scenario generally consists of six pages: two for the Umpire and two for each player. Once you add the background and support material, The September War comes in at 240 pages long and will cost £9.50.  

To wet your collective whistles, here is an AAR from the playtest of scenario #01: Chojnice. Will the Poles manage to blow the vital railway bridge in time? Or will the Germans manage to capture the bridge and defuse the explosives, then send their armoured train in to wreak havoc on the Polish border defences? Click on the picture below to find out more...

Polish Cavalry Conversions

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To celebrate the publication of my The September War scenario pack for IABSM*, I am declaring this week to be Polish week on Vis Lardica. All the posts through to Friday will be Polish in nature.

To start us off, here a bit of painting that I finished this weekend: a squad of Polish cavalry and a Big Man.

All the above are actually converted Battlefront Cossacks i.e. I've taken spare Cossack figures and given them new heads using Peter Pig Polish cavalry heads.

This was remarkably easy to do: snip off the old head, use a pin drill to create a hole in the decapitated torso, then pop the new head in. Takes about five minutes a time and gives you a nicely varied set of cavalry and reduces the lead mountain as I was never going to use those Cossacks.

Tomorrow's post features an AAR from the play-testing of The September War.

*The September War publishes on Wednesday  15th March 2017. It contains thirty-three scenarios from the German invasion of Poland, 1st September to 6th October 1939, and will be priced at £9.50. It is largely based on the first half of Alexander Kawczynski's Poland in Flames scenario pack for FOW, but totally adapted for IABSM.

IABSM AAR: Valle della Marie

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Mike Whitaker, fresh from proof-reading the Poland scenario pack for me (it's out next week), presents a lovely little battle report from the first game in his club's IABSM campaign.

It's Italy, 1944, and the Allies are tasked with capturing a village from the Germans. As it's a campaign, the players get a core force and get to choose some supports. I wonder if they chose wisely...?

Click on the pic to the right to see how the game went.

You can visit Mike's blog Trouble At T'Mill by clicking here.

Revised Army Lists for Poland 1939 Now Available

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Again in preparation for the publication of my IABSM scenario book for the invasion of Poland, The September War, due on the 15th of the month (that's next Wednesday, so get your pennies ready!), I have re-vamped the army lists for both the Poles and the Germans.

These are available as FOC pdfs from the Poland 1939 page in the IABSM section of this site, or you can click on the images below.

Polish Armoured Cars

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I'm just getting the figures ready for the next playtest of one of the scenarios in my forthcoming Poland 1939 scenario pack (barring major disaster, should be due for publication next week).

Here are three wz.34 Polish armoured cars from Battlefront. Nice little models, and you get all three, i.e. a complete patrol, in one pack.

The wz.34 was apparently the main armoured car used by the Poles during the September campaign, although some wz.29 armoured cars fought around Modlin. Crew of two, with either a 37mm gun (platoon commanders only) or a 7.92mm MMG.

IABSM AAR: The Bridge at Urk

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Nice to see someone playing a scenario from Vyazma or Bust! 

Here, fellow Lardy Vaggelis plays #2A: The Bridge at Urk in 6mm. Will the Germans manage to find a way through to outflank Sychevka? Will the Soviet commander survive the disgrace of his last battle? It all happens around the bustling metropolis that is Urk.  Click on the pic below to see the story unfold...

You can visit Vaggelis' excellent looking blog Wargames and History by clicking here.

Polish Mounted Commanders

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Following on from my "Don't Forget the Officers" post, below, here are three mounted commanders for my WW2 Polish cavalry:

These are not actually Polish officers at all, but the remainder of the German mounted command pack from Peter Pig with a head swap into rogatywkas.

You can't see it very well from this angle, but the headgear they are wearing aren't peaked caps but  rogatywkas: from the other side, they have a lovely mortarboard like flat surface that makes them quite distinctive.

The head swaps are, of course, because Peter Pig doesn't do a Polish range (but maybe they should, eh?) and I didn't want to buy an entire company of cavalry from either Battlefront or FiB just to get a few commanders.

Head swapping, btw, is really easy. All you need is a pair of clippers and a pin drill...oh, and some new heads from Peter Pig. Just snip the old head off, drill a hole where you want the neck to be, glue in the new head. It really is that simple.

Here's the two figures together:

Never Forget the Officer!

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Regular visitors will remember that I recently painted up a couple of squads of Peter Pig WW2 German cavalry that I'm using as early war mounted scouts:

Although you can see the squad commanders (two of them, furthest row) you'll note the absence of Big Man to lead the platoon forward. Well that's because as I was ordering them I was thinking that I had plenty of German Big Men, so wouldn't need any more. Problem is, of course, that although I have Big Men, I don't have any mounted Big Men!

This is where Peter Pig really come into their own. You can buy four "German Mounted Officers" in a pack rather than with, say, Battlefront, having to buy a whole blister or make some sort of never-arriving special order.

So here's the Big Man to lead the mounted scouts forward. Face looks vaguely familiar...

IABSM AAR: Winter '41

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Monster tanks, heroic last stands, futile human wave attacks and a cavalry charge! And snow, lots of snow.Excellent I Ain't Been Shot, Mum battle report from Iain Fuller's equally excellent Tracks and Threads blog.

The action takes place on the Eastern Front, Winter of 1941, and seems to have had everything: as the author says:  "monster tanks, heroic last stands, futile human wave attacks and a cavalry charge! And snow, lots of snow".

Click on the pic below to read all:

Polish Taczankas

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A couple of week's ago, I was complaining that I couldn't find any decent 15mm WW2 taczankas for my nascent Polish army: all that was on offer was the model from True North which was too solid, had four horses, and not enough crew.

Well as I still haven't been able to find any, and need to start play-testing the scenarios from my forthcoming September War scenario book (I've written the scenarios: just formatting it all now), I decided to bite the bullet and see what I could do with the four True North versions that I'd already bought.

So I now have are four pseudo-taczanka that will be fine on the tabletop but won't stand up to close scrutiny!

The base is the too-bulky True North wagon, with its horribly cast crew of two sitting figures, one in a forage cap and one in what I think is supposed to be a French-style helmet. I've cut the shaft (or tongue) right down, and put only three horses in front, evenly lined up as opposed to being driven unicorn.

The sitting gunners are from either the Battlefront or the Forged in Battle Polish MMG set (I forget which); the standing gunner is a spare Battlefront Polish anti-tank gun crew member, kneeling next to the True North (unmanned) MMG.

So I think that they will do for the moment, and can possible be replaced if anyone ever does release a better model. Now on with the play-testing...

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: