Here's the second platoon of Israeli infantry finished for my Six Day War mechanised infantry company.
It's always a hard slog through the main infantry element of any new force: a minimum of about a hundred 15mm infantry is always going to take time...but that's two of the three platoons done now, so given command, weapons platoons etc, I'm about half way through.
Here they are:
A quick AAR from Mark Luther dating back to 2010. It's an eastern front game of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! played in 6mm.
Click n the pic to see all:
Last week, I mentioned Dan Wade's superb blog Wade's World of Wargaming. Well, last year, Dan put on a Vietnam demo game at Call to Arms using Charlie Don't Surf! and a mash-up of a couple of scenarios from the CDS scenario pack, Surf's Up!
Dan reported on the demo game, and how he later played it through to a conclusion at home, over a series of blog posts which (and I hope he doesn't mind) that I have combined into one glorious battle report.
Click on the pic below to see his superb terrain and figures:
Sergeant Steiner continues his exploration of the IABSM rules with a game based on the fourth scenario from the IABSM v3 rulebook: A Canadian VC.
See how he gets on by clicking on the pic below:
Everyone is obviously clearing their painting tables in preparation for stocking up at Salute next weekend!
In no particular order, we have:
Today's pics? I think Carole's civilians (I'm a great fan of tail, as it were); some of WilleB's French; Steve's Parthians and one of Mervyn's 28mm AFVs:
Carole's civilian-types: Blah-blah, baa-baa, oink-oink!
A close-up of WillieB's Nappies
Parthians from Steve Burt
A Hetzer from Mervyn
Dan Wade writes a great wargaming blog called Wade's World of Wargaming. There are loads of great posts and great pictures showing off Dan's collection of beautifully painted figures and terrain.
One of Dan's particular interest is Vietnam, so here's a very quick pic-only AAR from the period which I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing here. The game features a bit of tank-only action: click on the pic below to see all...
A quick battle report from the Stipsicz Hussars, whose excellent blog can be reached by clicking here.
Will the Canadian tanks be able to break through the German lines? Click on the pic below to find out...
Exciting news from Lard Island: with advanced orders for Sharp Practice now being taken.
Sharp Practice is the TFL large scale skirmish game designed for use from the Napoleonic era to the end of the catalytic wars.
Here's what Big Rich had to say about the release:
The rules are at the printers, the cards are being produced, the Poker Chips are en route and the Game tokens are rolling off the production line. That can only mean one thing: Sharp Practice will be released on St George’s Day later this month and we are now taking advanced order.
And what spankingly good advanced orders we have for you too. You can, of course, get the rule set on its own, but there are also five bundle deals which you can select from which provide some assistance when playing the game. Let’s take a look at what these bundles contain.
It's a 120 page book which contains the rules and Army Lists for five different conflicts. These are the French Indian War, the AWI, Peninsular War, ACW and Indian Mutiny.
However, the rules won’t stop there. We have lost of other periods ready as free downloadable Army lists covering stuff like Garibaldi in Italy, Napoleonic warfare, Revolutionary Wars in Italy, US Mexican Wars and a whole host of other exciting stuff.
You can choose whether you want to use a card deck or pull chips from a bag or cup. It’s entirely up to you which you use. You will need ONE set or cards or chips to play a game. You do not need one per player.
The poker chip set are 34 tokens in engraved MDF which are very easy to paint up and look superb when they are done. The cards are a proper poker standard set with rounded corners and come in a tuck box. As it happens we got 40 cards to a deck as this suited the printer card sizes so the card deck is slightly larger.
A set of 18 acrylic tokens to indicate when units Present (ready to fire a controlled volley), when they are firing an uncontrolled volley and when they are broken. We have played many many games and this set of 18 tokens have been all we needed for any game situation. No need to duplicate unless you are really going to push the boat out on game size.
We will be posting photos of all of the items as they arrive from suppliers, for now you’ll have to trust us as to the fact that they are all designed for purpose and rather swish. Here’s the bundles in detail.
The monster of a bundle with everything anyone would wish for on the Sharp Practice front.
At £38 this saves you £21 as a bundle.
Chips with everything (as per Bundle 5 but no card deck)
At £34 this saves you £19 as a bundle
Card Sharp (as per Bundle 5 but no Poker Chips)
At £35 this saves you £19 as a bundle
Rules & Chips
At £28 this saves you £17 as a bundle
Rules & Cards
At £29 this saves you £17 as a bundle.
These bundle orders are for the hard copy rules with extras and they PDF comes free as a “thank you” for placing an advanced order. Please note, the free PDFs will be sent out on the 23rd of April, the release date.
We will be releasing the PDF bundles on the 23rd of April which will cover the PDF versions of the rules along with bundles of hard copy cards, chips and tokens, so if that’s your bag keep your eyes on the web site or Lard Island News for more details.
The entries for this year's challenge are flooding in!
Today we have:
Phew! Now, pictures:
15mm Panthers from Mr Fitch
Indian Bowmen from Sapper
Kev's De-Cloaking Spaceship
Scorecard will be updated tonight.
A quick Charlie Don't Surf! battle report from the Dr Fischer's Game Night blog dating back to 2014.
Based on a real encounter, with information from the actual after action reports, the game doesn't go quite as the umpire had planned...
Click on the pic below to see all:
Scenario #10, Slim River, is one of my favourite battles from the Fall of the Liongate scenario pack for I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum.
Taking place on 7th January 1942 (i.e. a month after Pearl Harbour), the Japanese have been hammering down the centre of Malaya, smashing most British Indian troops aside, and slowed only by the efforts of some Gurkha regiments and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. To continue their advance, they launch a sudden thrust down the single road that leads to the village of Trolak, their objective being the bridge there over the otherwise impassable Slim River.
Click on the pic below to see if the Japanese manage to take the bridge:
Now that the UAR/Egyptian forces are just about done for the 6DW, it is time to start on their opponents: the Israelis.
I've actually painted six Israeli tanks of various types, but haven't been able to get the decals needed to finish them off, so the honour of being the first Israeli unit finished goes to the first platoon of a mechanised infantry company:
These are Battlefront figures, undercoated in a light desert colour, washed with a dark brown ink, and then highlighted with various shades of flesh and greens. It's an effect that looks a bit rough and ready up close, but works really well on the tabletop and in AAR photographs.
Only another two platoons, the weapons platoon, and all the support weapons to go!
A quick battle report from Sergeant Steiner's excellent blog (click here to visit). Here he plays the third scenario included with the IABSMv3 rulebook: Action at Galmanche.
The Stipsicz Hussars play another of the scenarios from the Operation Compass scenaripo pack for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum!
This time they play the first scenario in the pack: the Road to Fort Capuzzo, featuring a British attack on a position manned by Italian/Libyan colonial troops. Click on the pic to see all:
Just back from a week north of the border, and have returned to find my inbox brimming with entries into this year's challenge.
Here are today's updates in, as always, no particular order:
Well that's taken me more than an hour to sort!
Today's pictures are from Carole, some of her Kra'vak; from Doug, some of his 6mm figures; and from Steve, some cataphracts:
Doug's British Dragoons and Horse for the WSS in 6mm
Carole's Kra'vak command in 15mm
Steve's Cataphracts in 28mm
Well we haven't seen one of these for a while: here's another of Mark Luther's amazing battle reports using IABSM in 6mm.
Here a mixed force of Soviets tries to scout out a suitable river crossing as they advance across Poland in 1944.
Click on the picture below to see all:
Recently, there have been a spate of people on the TooFatLardies Yahoo Group mentioning how good the Musée de l’Armée in Paris is.
Reading their recommendations sparked off an idea in my head: I had a few days holiday left over from last year that I had to take before the end of March and, never having “done” Paris before, thought I’d take the opportunity to do so, with the Musée being one of my main objectives.
A quick surf of the net secured me Eurostar tickets and three nights in a 3* hotel for only £240. With such a short time available, I planned what I was going to do with military efficiency, including pre-buying a Paris Museum pass and a Metro pass. For those interested, I ended up almost exactly cost-neutral on the Museum Pass, but really appreciated not having to queue for tickets anywhere; and used the Metro constantly: things in Paris are a lot further apart than the maps suggest!
I’d allocated Tuesday late morning for the Musée. The plan was to get up early and visit the Eiffel Tower first thing, then walk to Les Invalides, which is where the army museum is.
The Tower is amazing (get there forty-five minutes before opening time: I did so, and was first in the queue with, by the time it opened, some 500 people behind me!) so it was mid-morning by the time I arrived at Les Invalides.
I entered from the river side of the building, which means that I ended up in the central courtyard almost immediately. It’s impressive, with various bits of kit scattered around the walkway around the outside.
Pictured here is a Renault FT-17 tank, the world’s “first modern tank” that set the standard for AFV design i.e. tracks at the side, turret on top. What amazed me was how small it was, and how fragile the front hatch looked.
There are five main things that I’d recommend seeing at the Musée:
This is an amazing collection of the aforementioned old armour and weapons. Most impressive are the galleries of suits of full- or half-armour made for royalty or other noble-types. Also very impressive are the glass-fronted storerooms of full suits of armour such as the one pictured here. These are just the storerooms, not the main exhibits, and look rather chillingly like a scene from a Cyberman attack!
There are also a lot of weapons on show. A lot. This sort of thing is a particular interest of mine, and I spent a lot of time wandering round reminding myself of the difference between a morion and a sallet, and attempting to remember the difference between a glaive and a guisarme.
It’s nicely laid out in a rough circuit, and well worth doing.
Loved this gallery as well. Loads of uniforms on show, including an absolutely incredible gallery full of original Napoleonic cavalry uniforms (see pictures, below).
They also have loads and loads of hand guns and long arms, really depicting the transition from matchlock to wheel-lock to flint-lock etc. Lots of swords as well.
The accompanying history was also good. I made a point of watching their video displays of various important battles of the period: imagine a series of large coffee-tables with a screen instead of a surface, with the battles playing out on top of them with commentary through headphones.
Finally, I also liked all the bric-a-brac, with my favourite being dispatch cases printed with the name of the Marshall whose orders they contained.
I took a break for lunch at this point. I would highly recommend using the on-site restaurant. Here’s a picture of my lunch: delicious!
It’s worth differentiating between theWW1 and the WW2 exhibits, as they have a very different feel to them.
The WW1 bit is a bit like a continuation of the Napoleonic bit, above. Lots of original uniforms (amazing how colourful they were…at the beginning of the war!) and weapons on display, and lots of history written from a very French point of view.
WW1 isn’t really my thing, so I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed these galleries.
The WW2 bit, unsurprisingly maybe, has a very different feel to it. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but the other parts of the museum are displayed and written from the inside, as it were, whereas these galleries felt far more like you were reading something written from the outside. There’s quite a bit on the Free French army, which was very interesting, but again to me the best bits were the various pieces of equipment on show. I can really understand how big a Solothurn anti-tank rifle is now and, funnily enough, how small an MP-4 looks.
The attic contains a visually astounding collection of Plans-Relief.
What’s a Plan-Relief I hear you ask? It’s basically a wargames table designed to be used as a map…or a map that looks like a wargames table: take your pick.
These are huge, and are displayed in an attic that seems to go on for miles. It’s a spooky place, and a must-see.
Displayed as the centrepiece of the inside of the Dôme des Invalides, this is impressive both inside and out.
Do try and pick a time that isn’t full of school kids so you can appreciate the full majesty of the place. The school parties tend to clump, and are usually only in there for ten minutes or so, so if there are some in there when you arrive, go have another beer at the restaurant and wait until you seem them streaming back past you into the museum proper before visiting it yourself.
The Dome des Invalides (above) containing Napoleon's tomb (right)
So, there you have it: an absolute recommendation for the Paris’ Musée de l’Armée. Had I had time, I would almost certainly of gone back and had another look around. There really is just too much good stuff on display to take it all in first time around.
Superb battle report from Carojon and the Devon Wargamers covering a recent game using scenario #12 from the Welsh Guards supplement: Cymru Am Byth.
Loads of background information and some stunning photos make this a must-see!
Click on the pic, below, to see all:
A final Charlie Don't Surf! battle report lifted from the, I think, defunct, Tao of Lard blog (no posts since 2013).
Here a company of US troops are tasked with checking a village for caches of rice...but will Charlie let them go about their work unmolested?
Click on the pic below to read all about it:
A few pictures of a recent game of IABSM from the Stipsicz Hussars: a re-fight of the climactic battle of Operation Compass fought in the western desert in February 1941.
Click on the pic to see more:
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.
