Another quick after action report from Burt Minarot’s excellent Spanish-language blog Las Partidas de Burt.
Here, British troops are trying to slow down a German force advancing towards a vital crossroads designated as the next jump-off point for the Allied advance.
Click on the picture below to see all:
Here are some great photos of a game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum from Joe McGinn and Tim Howard. These pics are lifted from the IABSM Facebook Group: membership a must if you enjoy the game!
Click on the pic below to see all:
Friend Dave and company have been playing a mini I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum campaign, Chasseur, and invited me to take part in game three. The campaign is set during the invasion of France in May/June 1940, and I would play a column of German Panzers as it motors towards the Seine.
The AAR contains all you need to play the scenario for yourselves, so click on the pic below to see what happens:
Regular visitors will know that my favourite era of WW2 is the early period: 1939 through to early 1942, with a big focus on the campaigns of 1939 and 1940. This period, however, is not the most popular: most gamers go for the mid- to late-war period with its bocage, big cats, Panzergrenadiers, Americans and tank-riding Soviets.
This means that it can often be quite difficult to find 15mm versions of some of the more esoteric early-war vehicles: it’s just not worth the whiles of figure manufacturers to go to all the expense of having them sculpted and cast - they just won’t sell enough of them.
One solution is Shapeways, custom-printed to order…but it’s often hard to find a Shapeways model that doesn’t look as if it’s been 3D-printed: the build lines can be very apparent, especially when using wash techniques to paint them. Washes, after all, are designed to run into cracks and crevices.
Recently, however, I was browsing the WW2 section of the Lead Adventure forum when I came across a post from a chap who has produced a number of uncommon early war vehicles on Shapeways. The picture of the vehicles looked better than normal, so I thought I’d give them a go. They were, as the title of this post suggests an Adler Kfz 13 reconnaissance car and, based on the same chassis, an Adler Kfz 14 radio car.
Here’s the link to the MojoBob’s Shapeways page.
The vehicles arrived promptly and actually look quite good indeed. Here they are painted up, with a suspiciously familiar command figure for scale comparison:
Adler Kfz 13
Adler Kfz 14
The machine gun in the Kfz 13 is very nice: grown from the bottom of the chassis with a little seat thrown in as well. No awkward sticking teeny-tiny pieces into teeny-tiny holes! Likewise, the antenna on the Kfz 14 comes integral to the vehicles, meaning that for both models all you have to do is undercoat and paint. The Kfz 14 also has a seat and radio-like boxes in the main compartment.
The only downside to the models, along with almost everything on Shapeways, is the rather hefty price tag: an average of £10 a vehicle, or at least double what you’d pay at Battlefront or Peter Pig etc.
But I like them, and they aren’t available elsewhere.
So we’ll give MojoBob a recommendation, especially as I’m currently eyeing up the Guy Lizard command vehicle, the Lanchester armoured car, and all three Soviet artillery tractors!
Yet another stupendously huge IABSM AAR from Just Jack: the third in his series of fighting on the northern shoulder of Kursk.
This time, the Soviets are counter-attacking towards Kastenwold, and seem to be doing a good job of it too!
This is another huge AAR: 162 photos if I recall correctly. So click on the pic below to see all…
Great little AAR by Desmondo Darkin, taken from the IABSM Facebook Group.
The scenario was based on Day 2 of Operation Martlet, 25th June. 1944: the British attack on the German line at St Nicholas Farm and the Grand Farm.
Desmondo and friends used the Oh What a Total Bummer dice-driven version of IABSM. Click on the pic below to see what happened:
Not a full AAR, but some nice shots of a Tim Whitworth game from last summer. Images taken from the IABSM Facebook Group: recommended if you play the game.
Another stupendous After Action Report from Just Jack, currently fighting a mini-campaign On the Northern Shoulder of Kursk.
This is fight two, so make sure you are sitting comfortably as we launch into another epic tale: even if this report contains only 144 photos this time!
Just Jack runs as excellent blog, Blackhawknet, that can be found by clicking here.
Click on the pic below to see all:
A quick AAR from Joe McGinn and friends at the Hailsham Wargames Club.
They have come back to IABSM after at least a year away, and had forgotten what a great game they give.
Click on the pic below to see the results:
Tim Whitworth and friends are working their way through the Defence of Calais scenario pack. Here’s a quick AAR from Scenario #04: The Road to Gravelines.
The unenviable task facing the British was to get a massive truck borne supply consignment of rations from Calais to Dunkirk along the road via Gravelines. Early in morning the convoy left the Calais Gate and travelled the route until it reached the village of Le Beau Marais where 1 Panzer Division forward elements had set up a substantial roadblock on the village crossroads and billeted up for the night.
The game begins with the British reaching the roadblock and the Germans being alerted to their presence.
Click on the picture below to see what happened:
I always like it when people go back to their archives and add games from yesteryears to their blogs.
Here’s one from Burt Minorrot’s excellent Spanish-language blog Las Partidas de Burt from five year’s ago. Click on the picture to see all:
A stupendous AAR from Just Jack from his excellent blog BlackHawkNet covering a game of IABSM set on the northern shoulder of the great battle of Kursk in July 1943.
This is well worth a read although, just to warn you, there are 175 captioned photos of the action!
So get yourself a cup of tea, settle down, and click on the picture below…
Tim Whitworth and friends have now moved on from scenario #04 in the Defence of Calais scenario pack. Yes, that’s right: they’ve moved on to scenario #05: The Carriers at Cocquelles.
Click on the pic below to see the first set of pictures from the game:
Tim Whitworth is certainly getting value for money from the Les Attaques scenario from the Defence of Calais scenario pack: he’s on games 4 and 5 now.
Click on the pic below to see the whole saga: newest pics are at the bottom.
It was the Pie, Mash & Lard Lardy Day at the South London Warlords yesterday: a day which included a IABSM game put on by Ian Spence involving a US mixed force of tanks, Recce and infantry pushing German defenders out of a village and driving off table. A bloody affair which ended up with most German units eliminated, except the crucial platoon that held the village itself.
Click on the pic below to see Desmondo Darkin’s full report plus pictures:
Tim Whitworth and friends have found the Les Attaques scenario from the Defence of Calais scenario pack strangely addictive.
See all the new pics (at the end of the original report) from games two and three:
Published today, and available to buy from the TooFatLardies shop, Blitzkrieg in the Far East 1: Japan is the sixth in the series of early war handbooks for I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum. The handbook is 116 pages long and covers the Japanese army during the first phase of the War in the Pacific, December 1941 to June 1942, when its battle-hardened armies inflicted defeat after defeat on the Allies.
Unlike the other titles so far in the series, the nature of Japan’s campaign of expansion means that the booklet is not divided into sections defined by the different types of division that fought, but into sections defined by the different geographical mini-campaigns: Malaya and Singapore, Burma, the Philippines, The Dutch East Indies and the South Seas. In effect, it is several theatre booklets rolled into one.
There are a total of forty-eight different lists split as follows:
Malaya & Singapore: 7 lists from 25th Army
Thailand & Burma: 5 lists from 15th Army
The Philippines: 16 lists from 14th Army
Hong Kong: 1 list from 38th Division
Borneo: 2 lists from 35th Brigade
The Dutch East Indies: 15 lists from 16th Army
The South Seas: 2 lists from the South Seas Detachment
Finally, we have the usual ratings and armoury sections, and a note on air support.
Although designed for IABSM, Blitzkrieg in the Far East: Japan contains a vast amount of information useful to gamers of other systems, and is really a must-buy for anyone interested in the early war period.
Another amazing-looking IABSM 6mm gamed played at Gigabites Café in September 2019 by Mark Luther and friends.
It’s Germany, February 1945, and the Germans prepare to counter-attack the advancing Soviets. Click on the picture below to see all.
By the end of the first week of September 1939, the German 4th Panzer Division had advanced as far as Warsaw. Thinking the Poles would be knocked off balance by the speed of their advance, German commanders issued orders for the city to be stormed via the Ochota district on the western flak of Warsaw.
The Poles, however, had heavily reinforced the area, with units from the 40th “Children of Lwow” Regiment barricading streets and manning gun emplacements along all the approaches.
The Poles let the Germans drive into the city, and then opened fire with everything they had. Worse, many streets had been covered in turpentine, which was then lit on fire, destroying several German tanks and catching German infantry in the inferno that followed.
This then was the background for scenario #48 (Taking Ochota by Surprise) of the second September war scenario pack. The game would begin as the Poles (played by Dave) open their attack on the advancing Germans (played by John). The Germans’ objective was just to get as many of their units as possible back off the table; the Poles’ objective was to destroy as many German units as possible.
Click on the picture below to see what happened:
I picked up an excellent book on the September War the other day: Roger Moorhouse’s “First to Fight”.
It’s a very readable summary of the campaign that concentrates more on the day-to-day events of the campaign than on the politics that inspired them i.e. very much a wargamer’s book!
I’ve just started reading it, and what’s especially pleasing is that the first few actions described coincide almost exactly with the first few scenarios in the first September War scenario pack for IABSM. We’re talking Chojnice, Mokra, Wegierska Gorka and many more. I haven’t found any contradictions between the two publications yet either.
Here’s the official blurb:
'This deeply researched, very well-written and penetrating book will be the standard work on the subject for many years to come' - Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny
The Second World War began on 1 September 1939, when German tanks, trucks and infantry crossed the Polish border, and the Luftwaffe began bombing Poland’s cities. The Polish army fought bravely but could not withstand an attacker superior in numbers and technology; and when the Red Army invaded from the east – as agreed in the pact Hitler had concluded with Stalin – the country’s fate was sealed. Poland was the first to fight the German aggressor; it would be the first to suffer the full murderous force of Nazi persecution. By the end of the Second World War, one in five of its people had perished.
The Polish campaign is the forgotten story of the Second World War. Despite prefacing many of that conflict's later horrors – the wanton targeting of civilians, indiscriminate bombing and ethnic cleansing – it is little understood, and most of what we think we know about it is Nazi propaganda, such as the myth of Polish cavalry charging German tanks with their lances. In truth, Polish forces put up a spirited defence, in the expectation that they would be assisted by their British and French allies. That assistance never came.
First to Fight is the first history of the Polish war for almost half a century. Drawing on letters, memoirs and diaries by generals and politicians, soldiers and civilians from all sides, Roger Moorhouse’s dramatic account of the military events is entwined with a tragic human story of courage and suffering, and a dark tale of diplomatic betrayal.
Highly recommended:
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:
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