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.
Flicking through Amazon Prime last night looking for something to watch, I came across the film Battle for Moscow aka Panfilov's 28. Worth a look, I thought, so clicked to spend my £4.99 and settled down to see what was what.
Well it's a cracking bit of military movie making. Here's the summary:
USSR, Late November, 1941. Based on the account by reporter Vasiliy Koroteev that appeared in the Red Army's newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, shortly after the battle, this is the story of Panifilov's Twenty-Eight, a group of twenty-eight soldiers of the Red Army's 316th Rifle Division, under the command of General Ivan Panfilov, that stopped the advance on Moscow of a column of fifty-four Nazi tanks of the 11th Panzer Division for several days. Though armed only with standard issue Mosin-Nagant infantry rifles and DP and PM-M1910 machine guns, all useless against tanks, and with wholly inadequate RPG-40 anti-tank grenades and PTRD-41 anti-tank rifles, they fought tirelessly and defiantly, with uncommon bravery and unwavering dedication, to protect Moscow and their Motherland.
The film begins with some infantry in a small village, gathered around some tables in the snow being taught how to disable German tanks. There's lots of chat about duty and the Motherland, a bit of banter as we start to identify the different soldiers, and a general sense of teeth being gritted as they prepare for battle.
There's some interesting uniforms on display, as this is a Kasakh regiment (loving the huge and bright purple collar flashes!) and, as they start to dig in, a sense that they have a tough time ahead of them. There's some more banter about Thermopylae and the Seven Samurai, and then we're straight into the trenches to await the Nazi attack.
Not a still from the film, but a group shot of the main actors
The Germans get a pre-game stonk, and then come forward with tanks and infantry...but this first assault is beaten back fairly easily as the Soviets are under hidden Blinds and inflict double Shock when firing from ambush.
There's then a bit of a pause for more chat, and then we're on to the climactic battle as the Germans first pound the Russian trenches with off-table artillery, and then come forward again with an overwhelming number of tanks and infantry committed to the assault. I won't tell you what happens, but think Rourke's Drift!
It's stirring stuff, and the German tanks (Panzer IIIs and IVCs) look amazing , especially the shots from inside the tanks. The Russians have 45mm anti-tank guns, anti-tank rifles, and anti-tank grenades...and, presumably, balls of steel!
The cinematography is excellent, the sound very good (no mumbling actors here) and, as above, the special effects are cracking too.
For those worried about the gore factor, it's not shot in the modern grossly graphic style (the first episode of the new season of Preacher was ten times worse!) but more akin to movies such as The Longest Day or Battle of the Bulge.
In all, it's a really good, old-fashioned war movie.
Highly recommended.
Here come the Germans!
One of the recent new 15mm releases from Zvezda was the Jagdtiger: joining the Sturmtiger and Elefant on the list of available German wunderwaffe.
Now I don't know why Zvezda would concentrate on such rare vehicles as opposed to, say, expanding their early war range or starting on the Polish, Italians or Japanese, but I'm glad they did, as it means that I can add them to my collection guilt-free at about £3 a time rather than having to pay an exorbitant amount for the Battlefront equivalent.
As you can see from the photo, they paint up beautifully and are certainly not short on detail.
The Jagdtiger were a little bit more difficult to put together than some of the other Zvezda models that I have made, and I actually had to use a bit of green stuff to fill some gaps, but still the two combined took me only a couple of hours to complete from start to finish.
Highly recommended, as are all Zvezda's models.
Incidentally, if anyone is wondering, in IABSM the Jagtiger has armour 16 and gun strike 20: ridiculous!
PS If Mr Zvezda is reading this, can we have some Polish 7TP tanks now please.
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:
Having sorted out the list of sci-fi figure manufacturers, I thought I'd better take a look at the WW2 list as well.
Coincidentally, just as I was doing this, a notice about a new one appeared on TMP: Butlers Printed Models. This is a 3D printing outfit who will print your required vehicles to order.
As it's 3D printing, the finish is a bit rougher than resin or plastic, but then tanks (especially Soviet ones!) tend to be pretty rough to the touch.
At the moment, Butler's have all the basic vehicles required at some very competitive prices. All they need to do now is a Polish 7TP and I shall be reaching for my credit card!
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.
Although this site tends to cocentrate on the company-sized games from the TooFatLardies (IABSM, CDS, Q13), we do like to promote new releases for their other systems.
Here, then, is the latest pint-sized campaign for Chain of Command: Bloody Bucket. Here's the blurb:
"This Pint Sized Campaign for Chain of Command is the first covering the battle of the Bulge. The action here covers the initial German attack against the US 28th Infantry Division as the 26th Volksgrenadier Division attempt to clear the ground between the Our and Clerf Rivers in preparation for Panzer Lehr’s advance on Bastogne. What followed was three days of epic action which destroyed the German chances of victory.
Six battlefields provide a campaign which sees the Germans attacking and infiltrating to isolate the US defenders, initially with infantry but soon with armoured support while a gallant band of men fight on to the end.
This classic Pint Sized Campaign is designed to be run using the campaign rules in At the Sharp End and with Chain of Command rules. Can you break through and open the route to the Meuse and Antwerp, or will you make an heroic stand and halt Hitler’s lunatic vision of victory in the West?
Thirty-two pages long, this Pint Sized campaign provides the background history to the campaign with situation maps. Uses period maps to show the location of the actions and then provides a complete campaign with forces for both sides, support options for players to select from and full victory conditions for all six battles and the campaign as a whole."
Click here or on the picture of the front cover to buy "Bloody Bucket".
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:
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:
Another AAR from thee scellent Spanish-language blog Las Partidas de Burt, which I always translate as "Burt's Stuff".
Here the Soviets attack entrenched Germans from two different directions. Click on the pic below to see all.
Joe Patchen had a whole host of new vehicles and buildings that needed to get onto the table as soon as possible.
Terrain was gathered, players found: click on the picture below to read 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
If you have enjoyed visiting this site, please add a link to it on your own wargaming blog: www.vislardica.com.
