IABSM AAR: A Canadian VC #11

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One of the things I love about being a scenario writer is seeing how different people interpret the scenarios that I write: how do they translate my maps to their tabletops, how do their players handle the tactical challenges set for them.

I enjoy all this not just with my scenarios but with all scenarios, so it's nice to see the eleventh battle report for a game using the A Canadian VC scenario from the IABSM v3 rulebook: this one posted onto the IABSM Facebook group by James Tree.

I hope he doesn't mind, but I've also reproduced the whole AAR here as well. Click on the pic below to see all...then perhaps go back to the main AAR page to compare and contrast how the other ten games looked and played out.

IABSM AAR: Kursk

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Here's a great IABSM after action report from the somewhat surprisingly named Miniature Bastards* Russian-language blog by Valderech.

I haven't been able to make contact with Valderech, so I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing his entry here, but his game looks absolutely superb and deserves a wide audience.

As for the accompanying words, I have tried to convert the gobbledegook that Google Translate came up with into something resembling good English, so for any clumsy phrases etc, blame me.

Click on the picture below to see all:

*Now whilst my little men do sometimes let me down (my orders are always clear, my tactics always sound!) I'm not sure bad language is called for!

Gaming Models' Polish wz.29 Armoured Car

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Regular readers might remember that the chaps at Gaming Models in the US sent me some of their 15mm Polish models to have a look at. A previous post dealt with the Polski FIAT truck, now let's look at the Ursus wz.29 armoured car.

The wz.29 was supposedly obsolete at the start of the German invasion, having been largely replaced by the wz.34. All remaining wz.29's were attached to Polish units in the Modlin area, and fought against the reconnaissance elements of Panzerdivision Kempf and infantry from the SS Deutschland regiment. Despite their apparent obsolescence, the wz.29's fared better than their more modern counterpart: mainly because in addition to the standard MMG, they had a 37mm gun in what must have been a very crowded turret.

So what of the model? Very nice really, and good value at $5 (£3.80) a time. The detailing on the gun is quite difficult to bring out but, as I said, it is a very small turret, and I'm even considering gluing it in place so it doesn't get lost. 

That said, the detailing on the wheels makes the tyres really easy to paint, and you can see how the various doors and hatches come out with a bit of dry-brushing.

The model above was sprayed green, then had the bone and brown camouflaged patches brushed on. A brown wash followed, then a very light bone drybrush focusing on the  edges.

Recommended.

Gaming Models

IABSM AAR: Defence of Calais #01: Les Attaques

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As mentioned in a previous post, there's now a thriving I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! group on Facebook, which you can visit by clicking here.

One relatively recent post was from James Tree, with a brief pictorial report of his game using the first scenario from the Defence of Calais scenario pack: Les Attaques. I'm sure he won't mind me reproducing it here, so click on the pic below to see what happens as the Panzers first arrive at the outskirts of Calais...

Gaming Models' Polski FIAT 621 Truck

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The chaps at Gaming Models very kindly sent me a few samples of their WW2 Polish vehicles to have a look at.

First off the painting table is the standard lorry of the Polish army in the 1930s: the Polski FIAT 621 truck.

This is a very nice little model, cast in resin, that comes with a separate canvas cover that you can glue in or keep separate. The truck comes unbased but in one piece i.e. you don't need to faff around gluing the wheels on, all you have to do is decide what you want to do with the canvas cover.

Priced at $5 (about £4 at current exchange rates) it's good value and, as you can see in the picture above, paints up very nicely indeed. Even better value is the platoon pack, where you can buy eight trucks for $32 i.e. $4 or £3.12 each.

Mine required no preparation (I didn't even bother to wash it in soapy water) and was painted by undercoating in green, highlighting, then washing using Agrax Earthshade, then a light dry-brush in first a lighter green then Bleached Bone or whatever the modern equivalent is. I decided that this one-off truck wouldn't be camouflaged:  I have seen paint jobs with very garish yellow and brown stripey effects, but the only appropriate photo I can find with the suggestion of camouflage is the one below:

So, there you have it, a very nice and very affordable model: just what you need to properly motorise your Black Brigade!

Gaming Models

IABSM AAR: For the Honour of France

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June 1941. A most unlikely conflict has broken out between two former Allies. Vichy French airfields in the Levant have been used by the Lufwaffe to support an uprising in Iraq, and Britain has decided that enough is enough. A task force has been assembled to move north into the Lebanon and Syria to take control of the area for the Free French and safeguard British oil supplies. Unexpectedly Vichy forces resist strongly, fighting for the honour of France.

That’s the introduction to the game of IABSM that Bevan and I played on Sunday evening. An unusual game featuring Australians versus French in the desert.

Click on the (big) picture, below, to see all:

 

LCVPs for the Pacific Theatre

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Regular readers will know that I recently painted up a company of Landing Vehicle, Tanks  (or Amtracks) as part of an attempt to satisfy a friend's craving for a bit of War in the Pacific action. Planning the game, I realised that I only had three Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP) to accompany the Amtracks into action, but had a box of another three buried somewhere in the lead mountain.  

I still had a whole week to go before the game (it was today:  cracking game, AAR on here tomorrow or Monday) so thought I could just about get them done in time. I'd already painted three, so another three should be relatively simple.

Well, yes, in theory, but I had, of course, forgotten that Battlefront aren't interested in the Pacific War any more, so have let the molds go to wrack and ruin whilst they concentrate on Team Yankee. Never have I seen do much flash on so few models in a box set...and whilst I can clean them up in an hour or so, it was still an hour of painting time wasted. 

Worse, one of the strips of infantry was missing: a real pain as there was no way I could get a replacement in time.

I know Battlefront are great and all that, and a huge part of my collection comes from them, but it's things like the above that make you just go "grrrrrr" and do everything you can to support their competition.

Anyhow, I cleaned up the figures, substituted spare truck-passenger figures for the missing strip (see if you can spot them!) and got the little craft done in time.

Lovely models but, please Battlefront, if you're going to go all "the Hobby" on us, get your basic quality control right first!

Amtracks for IABSM

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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!

IABSM Facebook Group

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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.

Click here to go there!

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:

Film Review: Battle for Moscow aka Panfilov's 28

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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!

Jagdtigers from Zvezda

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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.