Cold War AAR using IABSM

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Some of you will remember that I use a variant of CDS to wargame battles from the Six Day War. Other people also use the core IABSM and CDS systems to fight other periods in history, especially those campaigns that we wargamers call 'Moderns': Yom Kippur and other later Arab/Israeli conflicts, the Cold War, the Falklands and more.

So today I've added a page where all these AARs can be collected together. It's under the CDS section in the NavBar at the top...and the first AAR to appear is an excellent 1984 Cold War game from Egg:  Stellingbostal.

Click on the picture below to see if the British can hold the village in the face of the Soviet steamroller...

Q13: Xar Officers etc

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I'm really driving through the Xar at the moment, mainly because I know there's a big Battlefront order on its way, and I want to clear the painting table before it arrives!

Today's offering are the Xar officers and specialists:

First up are the Xar Big Men (above). Note the natty gloves: they are what I decided to use to indicate rank, as the Xar don't appear to affect any other form of clothing or insignia, and only the command-type figures where gloves.

Next up (below) are half the specialists: probably to be used as FOOs to bring in some off-table artillery.

Then we have some of the most important chaps: the drone operator specialists, along with two general purpose GZG drones that have been, er, purposed for the Xar. 

These look so good, that I might actually get a couple more of each type, giving me two platoons of three drones each. The Xar shown, by the way, is for size comparison only.

TFL Painting Challenge: Sixth Update of the Year

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A quieter week this week, but still plenty of new submissions.

In no particular order, we have:

  • Lloyd "The Hat" Bowler with his first entry of the year: a zillion little 'planes and some much bigger Romans
  • Sapper spans the ages: New Kingdom Egyptians, Grenzers and a  couple of cracking 15mm helicopters
  • It's scenery time for Mr Luther: some more for Burma and even more the winter
  • Cabey Cabey submits some rather nice Austrian Jaegers...and their dog
  • Mr Yuengling sends in some 15mm WW2 Home Guard (I've actually just been watching 'Dad's Army' on the tv)
  • Matt Slade has already amassed an amazing amount of points. To this total he now adds some Cacadores and a large number of fantasy figures
  • Andy Duffell also mixes and matches his periods: some great looking 28mm WW2 vehicles accompany a Dropship Commander troopship
  • And last, but by no means least, Mr Helliwell submits yet more Thirty Years War foot 

Today's pictures?  See below:

Cabey Cabey's Jaegers

Sapper's 15mm choppers!

Andy Duffell's 38(t)s

The Hat's fleet of aircraft

Q13: This Week's Xar!

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I said I'd finish a squad of Xar every week until I had painted them all, so here's last week's offering: the first of the Xar "line infantry".

I've also managed to take a better picture of the little blighters!

I now have eighteen more Xar to complete from my original batch, plus another eighteen from the new batch...and then some drones and unarmed Xar as well. That will give me two platoons of infantry plus support drones, with only the armour to be decided upon.

IABSM AAR: Winter '41

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Monster tanks, heroic last stands, futile human wave attacks and a cavalry charge! And snow, lots of snow.Excellent I Ain't Been Shot, Mum battle report from Iain Fuller's equally excellent Tracks and Threads blog.

The action takes place on the Eastern Front, Winter of 1941, and seems to have had everything: as the author says:  "monster tanks, heroic last stands, futile human wave attacks and a cavalry charge! And snow, lots of snow".

Click on the pic below to read all:

Polish Taczankas

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A couple of week's ago, I was complaining that I couldn't find any decent 15mm WW2 taczankas for my nascent Polish army: all that was on offer was the model from True North which was too solid, had four horses, and not enough crew.

Well as I still haven't been able to find any, and need to start play-testing the scenarios from my forthcoming September War scenario book (I've written the scenarios: just formatting it all now), I decided to bite the bullet and see what I could do with the four True North versions that I'd already bought.

So I now have are four pseudo-taczanka that will be fine on the tabletop but won't stand up to close scrutiny!

The base is the too-bulky True North wagon, with its horribly cast crew of two sitting figures, one in a forage cap and one in what I think is supposed to be a French-style helmet. I've cut the shaft (or tongue) right down, and put only three horses in front, evenly lined up as opposed to being driven unicorn.

The sitting gunners are from either the Battlefront or the Forged in Battle Polish MMG set (I forget which); the standing gunner is a spare Battlefront Polish anti-tank gun crew member, kneeling next to the True North (unmanned) MMG.

So I think that they will do for the moment, and can possible be replaced if anyone ever does release a better model. Now on with the play-testing...

TFL Painting Challenge: Update Number Five

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Apologies for the slight lateness of this update: two games of Six Nations rugby to watch. A great performance from the Scots (really good to see them actually win a game after all the heart and soul they put into their play) and a scrappy victory for England that takes their winning streak to fifteen.

Now, on to today's update...in no particular order, we have:

  • Andrew Helliwell with, as he says, yet more Thirty Years War figures in 15mm
  • John Haines is in a last of the Mohicans Mood: AWI Woodland Indians
  • Mr Luther returns with a large 1/72 entry for his Burma 44/45 project
  • Chris Kay pops in another eight Napoleonic Brits
  • Mr Naylor rebases for Chain of Command
  • Derek Hodge also sends in his first entry of the year: four rather lovely Mediterranean looking buildings
  • Carole sends in two, contrasting entries: houses and barns...and hover tanks
  • Steve Burt is still in the Congo
  • Matt Slade sends in his usual enormous submission: the 95th Rifles and a horde of Dark Age warriors
  • The Mad Padre has a singleton Pasha, a brace of barbarians, and a trio of German AFVs to share
  • And last, but by no means least, Mervyn is still in Middle Earth with some Gondorians and some goblins

Today's pictures are below...

The Mad Padre's AFVs

Carole's hover tanks

John Haines' Woodland Indians

I'm off to the painting table myself now!

IABSM AAR: Soviet Advance 1944

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Another great AAR lifted from the "Burt's Stuff" blog, which can be visited by clicking here.

The Soviets are advancing forward as part of Operation Bagration, the Germans have scraped together a kampfgruppe to stop them. Click on the pic below to see all:

Once again I feel honour bound to point out that I haven't been able to get hold of Burt to check he's happy for me to translate his work onto the Vis Lardica site. I hope, when he does find out, that he doesn't object, and realises that I am only trying to give his work greater coverage, and to make the VL site as complete an archive of the TFL company-sied games as possible.

Q13: More Xar and more Xar!

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Finished another squad of the Xar this weekend: this time the chaps with grenade projectors.

My original plan of a single platoon has gone out of the window: I'm now going for two platoons-worth, so need another eighteen of the little critters.

Choice to buy made easier by the fact that I can use my special Xmas sale voucher to get 15% off, and the fact that Jon has just released a pack of unarmed Xar:

I am absolutely loving the ninja-poses! Check out the kung fu critters!

Even better, I think that these will do very nicely for crew figures for some of the GZG generic vehicles and guns that I want to buy to give the purple menace a bit more of a punch.

Watch this space for more...

TFL Painting Challenge: Huge Fourth Update!

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I can't remember the Challenge ever starting off so busy. Entries are flooding in, and I might have to move to doing updates more than once a week!

So, today, in no particular order, we have:

  • Sapper, with no less than three entries spanning three different eras: Napoleonics, modern MBTs and some Anglo-Saxon warriors
  • Steve Burt carries on up the Congo, with the mandatory bearers and a leopard that has definitely changed its spots
  • John Haines, new this year, has already sent in his second entry: some individually painted AWI Militiamen
  • Newbie Old Pivot is going to be playing Sharp Practice in 54mm: here is a group of his British Rifles
  • Jon Yuengling sends in his first entry of the year: some British WW2 minis in 15mm and a quartet of pulp figures
  • The weekly massive entry from Matt Slade: Hasslefree barbarians and bad guys of both the male and female variety
  • WillieB also makes a welcome return with two brigades of Sepoys for Sharp Practice Indian Mutiny: large numbers of lovely figures
  • The Mad Padre calls for the Mounties...and a moose
  • Carole sends in some terrain from Ironclad Miniatures
  • Keith Davies racks up some recce elements for his WW2 Brits
  • Andy Duffell has three 28mm Opel Blitzs for us to admire
  • and last, but definitely not least, Egg presents us with some more Cold War British vehicles...loving these!

So a huge number of entries today, so lots of pictures:

Just a few of Matt's barbarians: mine are okay, but I don't fancy yours!

Just some of WillieB's Sepoys

Check out his gallery to see the rest

Old Pivot's 54mm Riflemen

Egg's Cold War colation

Sapper's Napoleonic collection

Andy's Blitzs

IABSM AAR: Lisok 1944 by Vaggelis

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Fellow Lardy Vaggelis ran a 10mm participation game of IABSM at this year's Strategikon, which seems to have gone down very well with everyone who played.

His excellent blog, Wargames & History, where this AAR first appeared, can be visited by clicking here.

And you can also read the AAR on this site by clicking on the picture, below:

Even More Xar!

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I'm still sticking to my target of painting one Xar squad per week. This time it's the first of the main infantry contingent: nine Xar with heavy beamers:

Although I'm very happy with the way that the Xar have turned out, I'm less happy with my photography at the moment. For some reason, I just can't get what I want in terms of a nice sharp, matt image that properly shows the detail of the figures.

Can't quite understand why, as I've done it before many times. At first I thought it was too little light, as relying on the spotlights after dark makes everything very yellow. This time I think it's too much light, as the winter sun at the weekend was streaming in through the windows. Or perhaps it's the combination of purple figures and green background?

Whatever the reason, it's driving me crazy! I shall have to go back to the various articles I have saved about photographing miniatures, and check the camera is set up properly...

IABSM AAR: Nieuwkerk in 6mm

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I'm still working my way through uploading all of Mark Luther's excellent 6mm IABSM battle reports.

For those who haven't had a look, please do so now:  Mark's tables could almost be taken as photographs of the action portrayed. Ridiculously good looking!

Mark is adding new AARs to his Flickr album all the time, obviously trying to stay ahead of me, but here's the latest of my uploads: Nieuwkerk. Click on the pic to see all:

Wanted: 15mm Polish Taczankas

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As I get to the end of actually writing the Polish campaign book for IABSM, it's time to start finishing off my Polish army so that proper play-testing can begin.

I've got my infantry (Battlefront), and most of my cavalry (Forged in Battle), and what armour I need is readily available (Battlefront mostly, I think). The only thing I can't find anywhere is a Polish Taczanka i.e. the purpose-built cart to carry an MMG.

Both Battlefront and Peter Pig do Soviet taczankas...but they are very different, much heavier, than the Polish versions. They also have four horses, whereas the Polish version had three horses.

True North, via Old Glory, do a "Polish" taczanka, but having bought four, I can tell you that the cart is all wrong, it has four horses, no-one to fire the machine gun, and the sitting figures are horrible. QRF and Outpost both do Poles, but neither has a taczanka in their listings.

So...help!

Where can I find 15mm models of the Polish taczanka? Is there anyone out there who does one? Here are a few pics to help jog the memory:

TFL Painting Challenge: Third Update of the Year

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More entries coming in all the time. Today's updates are from:

  • Mr Naylor sends in his first update of the year, some 6mm Soviets from WW2
  • Matt Slade, of course, sends in a large amount of Napoleonic French. How does he get the time?
  • Egg has some more Cold War goodness on offer
  • Ms Flint pops in her first entry of the year: five boxes of 15mm plastic armour
  • Keith Davies is also back, and includes a few leftovers from last year as well
  • Chris Kay is new to the challenge, and has some lovely Napoleonic Brits for us to see
  • Ralph Plowman is back to sci-fi, with an exquisite battlesuit on show
  • Mervyn Douglas adds to his Dark Ages collection, and has a few Natal Native Contingent for us to see also
  • And last, but by no means least, Andrew Helliwell has some more Thirty Years War chaps for us to see

So we're off to a very good start already this year. Today's pics are below:

Mr Kay's first entry

Mervyn's NNC

Carole's PSC Shermans

A Quick AAR

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As those of you who are regular visitors know, I like to think of this site as a bit of an archive for battle reports for the company-sized games produced by the TooFatLardies (IABSM, CDS, Q13 and their variants).

Many people now just send me in their reports direct, or drop me a line to let me know they've just posted a new AAR for me to lift from their blog or website. I always link to where I get the content from, so hopefully it's all mutually beneficial and generally promoting the cause of Lard...which means more potential opponents and therefore more potential games.

It's certainly not about money. For those interested, the 2-3 ad sites on Vis Lardica have been up and running for about nine months now, and have so far returned about enough revenue to buy a single battlefront tank, and a small one at that.

It's also great to see how other people have handled the games from the specials and scenario packs that you've played (or in my case often written!) yourself: seeing what they did when faced by the same situation.

I always try and get permission to lift content from other sites, but sometimes that's quite hard to get: not because of resistance (most people are very happy to help me grow the Lard!) but because of a lack of available content details or difficulties in communication because of language.

So here's a very quick AAR from Burt, from his excellent Spanish-language blog Las Partidas de Burt, which I'm going to translate as "Burt's Stuff". I have tried to get in contact with him to check he and the photographer are happy for the lift, but so far to no avail. Let's hope they are, as there's lots of good stuff on the site just aching for a wider audience.

You can visit his site by clicking on its name, above, and read the report by clicking on the picture, below.

IABSM AAR: Village Defense by Algiz

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Fellow Lardy Algiz runs a Russian-language blog called All the King's Horses and All the King's Men covering the various wargames he and his friends play. You can visit his blog by clicking on its name, above.

He recently played an eastern front  game of IABSM involving the Germans defending a village in the face of Soviet assault, and has written a lovely battle report to go with the many pictures.  

I haven't been able to get hold of Algiz to ask his permission, so I hope he doesn't mind that I have used Google plus my own writing skills to translate his report into something easier to read than a raw Google Translate translation. I'd love to hear from him to confirm he's okay with that...and to find out what mostochka are, as my previous source on all things Russian is now, unfortunately, unavailable.

Click on the pic, below, to see all.

Incidentally, for those interested, this is the first AAR written using the blog function that I've switched to in the face of lack of available webpages (see post Page Limit Panic!, below).