Good to see that the entries are still coming n for this year’s Painting Challenge despite the problems of lockdown: hard to replenish your painting supplies when you’re not allowed out!
Here’s a selection of today’s entries: make sure you visit everyone’s galleries as there’s a lot to see:
I’m a great fan of the Zvezda 15mm plastic vehicle kits. Not only are they very nicely made and very easy to put together, but they produce some quite rare vehicles at very cheap prices.
My latest purchase was a platoon of three Wurfrahmen 40 “Stuka zu Fuss” rocket launchers built onto SdKfz 251 half-tracks.
I say my latest purchase, but i actually bought these before Christmas and have only just now got around to building and painting them.
These, as I said, are 15mm and plastic: the kits snap together without really any need for glue…although I tend to glue some of the major parts just in case. The half-tracks go together in about 90 seconds, but the individual rocket-launchers (six per vehicle!) are a bit fiddly, especially with clumsy hands like mine. Not difficult: just fitting three small parts together when you have to line up pegs and holes. I’m sure there’s an easy way of doing it involving tweezers or small children or something, but I couldn’t find it.
Obviously a completely impractical kit for I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum! as any such weapons would have been way behind the front lines: in wargaming terms, in the next room or even next house away! They do, however, allow me to field a rather nice objective and (let’s face it, the real reason) complete my collection so that I can now field the alternative third platoon structure of a company of engineers.
Recommended.
All this spare time at home has given Mark Luther a chance to write up an AAR that has previously just been a collection of pictures.
So here’s the Operation Express battle report again, but this time with the pictures correctly labelled and ordered.
Click on the picture below to see all. This is a magnificent report of a great looking game, so recommended!
I think that Cuirassiers in the full plate sense might have been dying out by the time of the English Civil War, but the book assures me that I might need a smallish unit for some scenarios, so it was off to the Internet to buy some figures and then to paint them.
These are 15mm Peter Pig figures painted using GW Contrast Paints. The horses are Cygor Brown thinned down 50/50 with the Contrast Thinner. The armour is Templar Black very lightly dry-brushed with Leadbelcher, except for the commander at the far end, who has a light dry brush of a dark gold colour.
The unit is shown as a Dutch- rather than the more modern Swedish-style formation i.e. two ranks deep relying on brute force rather than one rank deep relying on firepower. It’s still a smallish unit: being only four figures wide rather than the usual nine (which is going to make the larger Dutch-style units very heavy indeed at 18 cavalry figures to a base!).
The bases are Warbases vehicle bases flocked all over. The flowers are from Boontown, and are absolutely excellent.
Fantastic battle report from Tim Whitworth on a game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum played just before we all went into lockdown.
Tim and his friends have been playing through a Blenneville or Bust! campaign taken from the scenario pack of the same name. This was the final game in the series, and a chance for the Germans to achieve maximum victory points.
Find out what happened by clicking on the link below. Highly recommended: this is a serious after action report!
A bit of a change from ECW and WW2 today: giant 15mm mutants from Nuclear Shrimp Games.
These are plastic figures painted with GW Contrast Paints. Quite fun really: but the paints did all the work.
I’m a little concerned that the chap top left is blurred as if moving!
Hello All
Yes, I am still alive!
It’s just that the coronavirus situation now has me working from home and, this week at any rate, I have been busier than ever with no time to post anything.
That, however, is if there was anything to post. The fairly regular flow of AARs has now dried up: presumably either because of the closure of most of the places where people meet to play, or people avoiding playing in case they get a case of CORVIDs across the tabletop.
So a huge annoyance really: no commute, so technically plenty of extra time…but that extra time taken up with extra work to get the business done remotely…so no painting done…and no gaming either because of social contact restrictions.
But let us not despair: there’s still the Painting Challenge to enter.
Here’s a sample of the latest batch to hit my inbox, and a very impressive latest batch it is too. Check out the individual galleries too.
All this Working From Home (WFH) has given me time to finish off a couple of pike and shot units that have been sitting on the painting table for a bit. It’s all down to no commuting time: gives me an extra 2½ hours a day.
Anyhow, here’s another battalia of pike-heavy infantry:
And a small unit of Swedish Horse to represent Lifeguards or some such:
Both units are 15mm Peter Pig, and all painted with GW Contrast Paints. The pikes were from North Star Figures.
Some nice pictures from a game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum run by Julian Whippy and friends, and taken from the IABSM Facebook page.
British Paras hold a bridge waiting for their relieving armour to arrive. Click on the pic below to see all:
George Anderson reports on his second game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum, taken from his excellent blog Musing on Wargames and Life.
George still isn’t sold on the game, but let’s hope he gives it a few more tries. Click on the picture below to see what he thinks.
Lovely After Action Report from the pen of Tim Whitworth, taken from the IABSM Facebook page and his own blog Eagles & Lions Wargaming.
As the Germans had halted the American attack at Pierrecourt they were back on the counter offensive again, this time with a combined force of 30th Panther and 30th Panzer Grenadier regiments.
Click on the picture below to see all…
Another great week for the Painting Challenge, with loads of submissions coming in, including one from long-time participant, Stumpy.
Stumpy has taken the Challenge every year since it first started, meaning that this is his seventh year of entries, and with an average annual points score of just over 2,000. Impressive.
Here’s his first entry of the year: an LRDG Jeep and an M8 Armoured Car:
Lots of other entries as well. Here’s a little pictorial summary, but I do recommend that you visit people’s individual galleries as well:
Scorecard will be updated in due course.
Keep ‘em coming!
Regular visitors will know that I picked up a handful of 3D printed 15mm vehicles when I went to the Overlord show in Abingdon the other day. Time to get a bit of paint on the models to see how they turn out:
Front to back they are the US GMC CCKW 353 tanker, the British/Commonwealth CMP tanker, and the Soviet Zis 5 tanker.
As you can see, the 3D printing is pretty obvious at this close range, but is actually far less noticeable at usual wargames table 3ft distance. I also think the effect is magnified by seeing the three vehicles together.
On the whole I’m pretty happy: each vehicle was only £4 or £5, and as these are the only tankers I’ve come across in the marketplace…
Time to break out the I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum again with a scenario taken from the second September War scenario book: #60 Szack.
Szack was a small village in what was south-eastern Poland (it’s now just inside Ukraine) that was the site of a backwards-and-forwards series of actions between the Poles and the Soviets in very late September 1939. The scenario covers the first Soviet attack:
Soviet troops consisting of the 112th Infantry Regiment, some 13,000 soldiers supported by fifteen T-26 tanks and fifteen guns, arrived at the village of Szack on September 28th.
The Polish force near the village numbered 4,000 men of the Border Protection Corp, including General Wilhelm Orlik-Rückermann, and sixteen anti-tank guns.
Having taken the village, the Soviets then charged the Polish positions with infantry supported by the T-26 tanks. The Poles waited until the Soviets were right on top of them before opening fire with their anti-tank guns, destroying eight tanks.
Click on the picture below to see the action:
I’m still slowly working my way through what I need to field a decent sized English Civil War army.
Today’s unit is the first of the pike-heavy foot battalia i.e. where there are equal numbers of pikemen and musketeers in the unit rather than the more usual 2:1 ratio in favour of musketeers.
These are Peter Pig figures in 15mm painted, as usual, with GW Contrast Paints.
I wasn’t sure how to represent the difference between standard and pike-heavy units: I wanted something that could be seen easily on the tabletop without the need for additional markers.
I had thought of narrowing the unit by putting the extra pikemen in a third rank in the centre but, in the end, settled just for keeping the same shape of unit. Looking at a standard and pike-heavy unit next to each other, I’m quite happy with the way they compare: the difference is subtle but obvious.
The TFL Specials are a great source of scenarios and gaming ideas. Here’s a battle report from Dan Albrecht and the Vermont Historical Gamers Group playing the Walking in a Winter Wonderland scenario from the TFL 2005 Summer Special.
Click on the picture below to see all:
One of the great things about the world of Lard is the growing profusion of Lardy Days, where Lard-minded gamers can get together and indulge in their favourite pastime.
One of the early events on the 2020 Lard calendar was the Big Winter Wonder-Lard day held by Bristol Independent Gamers at the end of February. About twelve games, all fully participation, were run in each of the morning and afternoon sessions, covering just about the whole spectrum of Lard: What A Tanker; Chain of Command; Bag the Hun; Sharp Practice and, of course, I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum.
That game was run by Phil and Jenny, and featured action from the Arras Counter-Attack in May 1940. Click on the picture below to see an excellent pictorial report of the day’s events (lifted from the IABSM Facebook Group):
I last went to Overlord, Abingdon Wargames Club's annual show, some years ago, and all I remember was how small the show was, with few trade stands, and quite frankly not much to do.
I remember it well, incidentally, because that was where I bought my Peter Pig solid resin French buildings for use in my May 1940 WW2 gaming…not that I would ever buy solid resin buildings again: they look great but where do you put the troops that are in them? This must have also been before the great mdf scenery explosion, as that’s what I would buy now!
Anyhow, a throw-away comment by a fellow-gamer reminded me that it was on yesterday and, as it happens, I was able to negotiate a trip, and very glad I was too.
Aside from meeting up with said fellow-gamer and friends, the show is now in Abingdon & Whitney College, which has ample carparking, nice toilets (unisex!), a reasonable snack bar, and much more room for trade stands and games.
One of the games that caught my eye is pictured above: a 28mm “China invades Australia” game using Empress Figures. Very nice indeed.
There were also about thirty trade stands there, so I was able to get what I went for (flowers to dress the element bases of my ECW armies) and have a browse to see if there was anything new to see.
Well, there was: Syborg 3D Printing, a new (to me!) company producing 3D printed model vehicles in 15mm, specialising in somewhat obscure types from WW2 to the present day.
What caught my eye was their WW2 fuel tankers: a GMC CCKW 353 Truck for the Americans, a Canadian Military Pattern - Tanker for the British, and (my favourite) a Zis 5 truck - Tanker for the Soviets.
They were all bought very quickly, and have leapfrogged to the front of the painting queue! I shall be keeping my eye open for more from them too.
So a good trip to Abingdon, and a date for my diary for next year too.
Another set of magnificent entries into this year’s Painting Challenge.
Here’s today’s album:
Here’s the next video in Alex Sotheran’s series explaining the basic I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum rules.
This episode covers combat, the effects of shock, and artillery.
Click on the link below to see all:
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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