IABSM AAR: Normandy Game
/Here's an I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! battle report from the excellent Tracks and Threads blog.
Click on the pic to see the action:
Here's an I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! battle report from the excellent Tracks and Threads blog.
Click on the pic to see the action:
Happy New Year to everyone!
I hope 2016 brings you joy and happiness...and me a T-34/85!
Looks like everyone has made a huge effort to get their last minute entries in under the wire.
In no particular order we have:
Pictures for what may be the final post of this year's challenge? A mixed bag...
Mr Hodge's rather fine Spanish Guerillos
Some dwarves from Leif
Sapper's SYW French Currassiers du Roi
The Mad Padre's 20mm Revel Krupp Protze truck with AT Gun
Huge numbers of figures have obviously been painted over the Christmas break. Here are today's submissions in the run-up to the end of this year's challenge:
I was tempted to have today's picture being Joakim's nativity figures, but it's the 28th and the moment has passed. Here are Pedivere's resting legionaires, Jason's Gauls, and Matt's Amazons.
Still a few days to get your entries in!
For those who need to buy some more Lardy products (cough, my scenario books, cough*), Rich is running a 15% off sale over at the main TooFatLardies webstore. You can get there by clicking here.
Not sure how long the sale will last: Rich says until he's finished the Xmas Special...so Easter then!
*all my scenario books are updated for IABSMv3...and if you don't fancy them, there's always Q13!
Earlier this year I added Waugh Games to the list of WW2 figure manufacturers. If you remember (assuming you follow this blog fairly regularly) I ordered three Opel Maultier from them at the bargain basement price of £2.50 each: under half the cost of the Battlefront equivalent. I've now had a chance to paint them up, giving my Gebirgsjaeger a bit of additional transport.
So, how did they turn out?
The first thing to point out is that they come with a HUGE base built in i.e. on one side of the truck the base sticks out at least an inch; on the other, at least a centimetre. I'm not sure why they come like this, but they do. Here's the picture from their website that shows what I mean.
The other thing the picture shows is the holes in the resin: you can see a big one on the door, and lots of little ones in the main body's wooden panels.
Well, I could do something about the bases - snapping them off to a decent distance from the tracks wasn't too difficult - but I decided to ignore the resin bubble holes: far too fiddly to fiddle with.
A black undercoat was followed by an all-over coat of a medium dark grey. I then dry-brushed the canvas top in a lighter grey, then dry-brushed both canvas and body with white. The windscreen and other glass was dark blue and then my (only slightly successful) attempt at a glare effect. The tracks were my usual gunmetal covered with flesh wash. Here they are:
As you can see, the resin holes aren't really significant: they just look like wear and tear. The bases are still a bit thick, and aren't very even...but that won't show on the tabletop either. The only real disappointment is the bit between the tracks and the main body paneling: there's a big resin bulge that looks like, well, a big resin bulge.
In all, however, not bad for £2.50 a time. The old adage that you gets what you pays for has certainly held true!
I'm settling nicely into my Christmas holiday now: no work until the new year!
Here's today's patch of painting challenge entries:
Today's pic has to be Matt's familiar, but unavailable, figures:
Well, there is one more entry to come. Treadhead has submitted a picture of his brand spanking new games room. I can't score this for the challenge, but I can include the pic here:
Very nice!
Still plenty of time to get your entries in for the challenge. Doors don't shut until midnight on the 31st!
It's been a long time since I've needed to do a mid-week update, but the weight of entries now coming in demands it.
Mind you, a lot of them come accompanied by a note that says "this will be my last entry this year...". Rubbish, I cry, plenty of time between now and the new year to get something done!
Anyhow, in no particular order, we have:
Today's pictures? Well, see below...
Stumpy's Russian air Ambulance
Carole' hover bikes
Steve Burt's little ships
Scorecard will be updated today or tomorrow, once I can get to it on m home PC.
Sorry for the lack of updates over the last few days: been horribly distracted with real world affairs.
Anyhoo, to get back into the swing of things, here's a quick post showing my latest 15mm building for anything from WW2 right up to sci-fi: Sarissa Precision's factory.
The factory is mainly a single building with a nice roomy inside. There is a walkway halfway up one wall, and the windows and doors are made from heavy card stuck to the inner walls: nicely robust. There a small powerhouse plus chimney on one side, and the kit comes with a steps-and-gantry walkway that leads to one of the doors portrayed on the upper floor.
Now this is quite a challenging kit to build, but the instructions are excellent and easy to follow. It's just a bit fiddly in places, and I don't really do fiddly! The result, however, is definitely worth the time and effort. The outside looks brilliant, even with my rather crude paint job, the gantry is a very nice touch, and the inside is amazing. That walkway is surprisingly easy to build, and will provide a nice little fire step.
On the whole, highly recommended.
I'm making sure I keep ahead of the end-of-year rush here!
Today we have submissions from:
Today's pictures are from Ralph Plowman and Carole. First up are Ralph's marines/sailors from the late 19th Century:
And here are Carole' sci-fi figures for Q13:
Just twenty days to go to get your final entries in for 2015.
News that the Lardies have released a new set of markers for Chain of Command. I'll let Rich tell all...
"Two of the things we are regularly asked for are a set of Patrol Markers and a set of Jump-Off Points for smaller figures such as 20mm or 15mm. We thought it would be a great idea to kill two birds with one stone and, in partnership with our chums at Warbases, we have produced sets of eight markers for both the Axis and Allied forces. Each set contains four robust MDF Patrol Markers with either the Allied star or German Baltic Cross. The four Patrol Markers are 5cm diameter circles and four smaller jump off points are 3cm diameter. Both are in 3mm MDF laser cut and etched for each painting.
"Here’s what they look like “naked”.
"I decided to slap a bit of paint on my own sets. I went with a black undercoat for both before applying Vallejo Russian Uniform Green to the Allied ones and Middlestone to the Axis ones. I then added some camouflage to the German one before detailing the Allied Star in white and the Baltic Cross in black. The German one then got a yellow rim to make it stand out on the table. On reflection, I think I might do the Baltic Cross in white and maybe replace the yellow with a bright red. Early War Panzer grey would be a nice look too. Part of the fun is deciding how you like yours!
"The best news is that both the Axis and Allied sets are now available on the web site for just £3 each. Now, there’s a stocking present for you!"
Things are certainly hotting up as we draw to the end of another year's challenge.
Today's entries are from:
Today's pics? As it's almost Christmas, you get three today: it's got to be the Hat's command stand with hand-painted banner, and then Andy's 28's, and then one of Koen's entries.
Plenty of time for everyone to get their entries in BTW. This year's challenge doesn't end until midnight on the 31st. Come on! Get to it!
Vaggelis has begun playing his way through the Defence of Calais scenario pack, beginning with scenario #01: Les Attacques.
It is May 1940, and with British troops being evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk, the ancient port of Calais stands on the critical western flank of the Anglo-French lines. In a desperate bid to shore up this flank, Churchill has committed the British 30th Infantry Brigade to defend Calais to the last...
Click on the picture below to see the full AAR:
How time flies when you're having fun! One moment we're all talking about the 2015 new year, and the next it's the end of November already!
Still plenty of time to get your entries into this year's painting challenge. Here are some that other people have submitted:
Today's pics are from Pedevere: his staff car and Dodge truck...very tasty!
Those of you who read my post about Battlefront's Dust Cloud terrain markers will know that I have had some stuff on backorder from them for some time. One of the other things that was on backorder was their Desert Fort and expansion pack.
Now I can't remember exactly how this worked, but I think that they said they would only produce another batch of these if enough people agreed to buy them: a bit like a mini-kickstarter. Well I agreed to do so, and then promptly forgot all about it until the e-mails saying they were on the way started to arrive in my inbox, followed shortly afterwards by two quite big boxes.
Here's the fort itself:
It's a lovely piece of battlefield terrain. The walls and turrets are really chunky...and I've just realised I've set it up in the picture above with all but one of the walls the wrong way round...but you can see from the left hand wall what it should look like! Plenty of room for figures on those parapets, and for at least light guns on the tower-tops.
Here are a couple of views with a figure in them for comparison:
The expansion pack contains two ruined walls and two mid-wall towers that would allow you to double the length of two of the wall sides, provided you were happy to have the ruined walls included to make up two of the sides. Or you could just have the ruined walls as part of the original square fort.
Here's a pic of the fort set up as a square with on side bashed in:
In all, this is a lovely set of kit, ideal for portraying the desert forts of the western desert in the early 1940's. It would also do, of course, for sci-fi wargaming, and for Beau Geste-style games as well. Recommended.
PS Sorry about the pictures: I seem to have got most of the walls round the wrong way. That's what comes of drinking a bottle of wine whilst gaming, and then deciding to do a bit of photography afterwards!
The last building I had to put together from Commission Figurines was the gigantic Stalingrad Flour Mill.
Retailing at £45, this is a cracking piece: two joined buildings, one large, one small; five floors and a roof, with each floor having its own little ledge on which to place figures. You actually have to build it twice: once for the internal frame on which all the shelves sit, and once for the outside walls.
Here's a modern-day picture of the mill itself:
And here's a picture of my completed model:
Not the sharpest of photos, but you can see what I mean about the sheer size of the thing, and how well it compares to the actual building.
I painted this in orange, and then washed with GW Agrax Earthshade. It didn't need any sort of highlights dry-brushed on, so I didn't do any. The inside I left in raw mdf, as it looked okay and painting it would have been a real pain now that I had put it together. The outside pavement I did in the usual dark grey, black wash, light grey highlight, but I left the highlighter brush a little dirty from when I painted the orange on, so some of the pavement has a little bit of a brick hew, as if covered in brick dust or rubble.
The only thing I'm not 100% satisfied with the way I've painted it is the roof. You get two bits of flat roof, and then a sort of tunnel-walkway-attic as well. These I painted in dark brown, again with a hint of dirty orange in it. It looks okay, but I'm not sure quite how else to do it. Suggestions on a postcard please...
To finish, here are two close-up shots of the inside so that you can see how good it will be for actual wargaming. As I said above, cracking piece: highly recommended.
Yesterday saw the release of another pint-sized campaign scenario book for Chain of Command: The Scottish Corridor.
This supplement focuses on a German counter-attack on the salient held by 15 Scottish Division on the Odon river in the latter stages of the war. As ever, it is available for £3.60: the price of a pint in Richard's local.
Here's the blurb from the TooFatLardies website:
"The Scottish Corridor is the fifth Pint-Sized Campaign for Chain of Command, designed to be played using the campaign handbook, At the Sharp End.
"Twenty nine pages long, The Scottish Corridor follows the established Pint-Sized Campaign format, with an overview of the forces involved on both sides, their deployment shown on period maps and the course of the campaign described in detail before going on to present a mini-campaign covering the initial German counter-attack against the narrow corridor projecting down to the Odon river and Hill 112. A mixed force of two Kampfgruppe attack in the hope of isolating the British spearhead and restoring the line.
"The campaign is a total of six game tables with the duration running between six and eleven games. Briefings are provided for both sides, along with measurable objectives, period maps, force and support option listings and everything you need to play this campaign through to its conclusion.
"Like all of our Pint-Sized campaigns, this is available for the price of a pint in our local pub. We're sure that you'll agree, that is great wargaming value!"
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)
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