Gebirgsjaeger

More Gebirgsjaeger from Battlefront. Some of my initial enthusiasm has worn off, but I still think they are very finely sculpted figures. I'm almost sure two sculptors did the range: most of the figures are amazing, but there are a few that are more blobby mannequins!

First off, I'm loving this Big Man. Full of character and paints up really well.

Next, here's the first infantry zug completed. I particularly like the standing LMG team, far left in the middle squad as you look at the picture:

Note that I've changed the way I base my infantry. Rather than singles on 5p pieces, I've used doubles on 2p pieces, with a five-2p-piece movement tray allowing even quicker deployment. The 2p coins do come out of the movement tray for casualty and in-cover deployment.

And finally, here's a group shot just to let you see some more of the sculpts:

Right: on to the mortars now!

After Action Reports:

Eastern Front 1943

Another great battle report from a Tony Hobbz solo game. Using a variation of Platoon Forward adapted for company-sized actions, a German force attempts to hold a small village against overwhelming Soviet assault. Some fantastic photos!

After Action Reports:

They Come To Stop The Rooster

Gebirgsjaeger

Even if I am now buying all my tanks and other vehicles as plastics from the likes of PSC and Zvezda, I still have a soft spot for the Battlefront infantry. Some of it is far from perfect (British Paras!) but some of the ranges are exceptional...including the relatively new Gebirgsjaeger.

I've only just started painting them up, but here are the infantry guns and an FOO:

Late War Germans

Buying all the vehicles you need for an armoured infantry company is always a painful experience, whatever nationality you're collecting. My late war Germans need half-tracks, but the thought of buying four per platoon caused my wallet severe palpitations!

Step forward Zvezda! They do a lovely little SdKfz 251/1 that I managed to pick up at only £2.99 a go. With P&P, my nine models cost only £30: a bargain considering what purchasing them from other manufacturers would have cost me.

The models snap together easily in about five minutes...once you have the knack of it. You need to take care you don't bend the front axles when popping on the wheels, and the curious thread-through, over-and-under body construction took me a bit of time to figure out.

So, how do they look? well, judge for yourselves:

PS  I know these are the Ausf. B so technically early war...but who's going to notice once they're on the tabletop!

After Action Reports:

France 1940

A great battle report from a Tony Hobbz solo game. Using a variation of Platoon Forward adapted for company-sized actions, a German force attempts to clear a small French town. Some fantastic photos!

After Action Reports:

Tobruk 3: The Assault on the El Gubbi Airfield

A quick battle reports for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum!:  I finally managed to get around to playing one of my favourite Operation Compass scenarios: the assault of the El Gubbi airfield.

PSC British Shermans

As those who read this website regularly know, I have recently really got in to buying my WW2 tanks in plastic from either the Plastic Soldier Company or Zvezda. 

It means that I can afford to buy tanks by the squadron as opposed to the platoon with, in my opinion, no loss of quality either.

Here's my latest set of paint jobs:  a good part of a late war British armoured squadron armed with Shermans and Fireflys. Again, I can only say how easy they were to put together (once you get the knack of it) and how beautifully they paint up.

Are plastic tanks the way forward? Well, all I can say is that Battlefront have just released plastic Panthers. Better late than never, eh?

After Action Reports:

Neuville au Plain

Carentan

A couple more battle reports for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum!

First up we have our first report from the Devon Wargames Group, re-fighting the Neuville au Plain scenario from the All American scenario pack:

Then we have another report from the keyboard of Paul Scrivens Smith as he replicates the Carentan action from Band of Brothers: not once, but twice.

After Action Reports:

A Tale of Wooden Crosses (Flemcon 2011)

Incognicon 2012

The Winter War

We have a flourishing community of Scandinavian Lardies: renown for their good humour; extraordinary combinations of hair style and beards; and wonderful After Action Reports.

Here are three  After Action Reports, all from the Miniatyrmannen (The Miniatures Man) blog: two from various Cons, and one from a club game.

A Tale of Wooden Crosses describes how a German reconnaissance force succeeded in its aim of finding the enemy...

The game put on at Incognicon 2012 was based on the Nice One, Kirill! scenario from the TFL Summer Special 2007:

Finally, a good looking Winter War game set back in 1939:

After Action Reports:

Air Cav

It was great to meet so many Lardies at Salute yesterday. Included amongst the many was Benito and his fellow wargamers from Madrid, Spain. It's therefore good timing to post one of Benito's latest Charlie Don't Surf after action reports, with a scenario taken from the Surf's Up scenario pack.

Talking of Salute, I didn't buy very much, but I did buy some of those nifty explosion markers from Litko to replace the rather tired cotton wool that I usually use...especially as I had run out for the last game and had to use torn up make-up removing pads!

Felid Gallery

As I have often mentioned, one of the problems with some figure ranges is that they don't include any infantry support weapons. Plenty of men-with-guns, sometimes plenty of vehicles, but very little in the way of things such as the sci-fi equivalent or mortars and medium/heavy machine guns.

I accept that argument that in the future that sort of weapon might be redundant (firepower supplied via enhanced personal weapons, battle suits, different sorts of vehicles etc) but it's still nice to see that Khurasan Miniatures provides "full" ranges rather than just the grunts.

Here's my latest bit of painting: Pouncer Portable Missile Launchers for the Felids, and the other great thing is that the mortar operators can also double as drone operators for the Snaggletooth attack and Whiskers scouting drones.

On the subject of Tentacle, I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that it has now finally reached the top (-ish) of Richard's to-do-list, so I will be delivering the final draft version to him tomorrow for formatting into a final, published version. That's if his Dux don't get in the way!

After Action Reports:

A Village in Normandy

Inspired by the arrival of Battle for Liberation, here is an AAR from a great Normandy game played yesterday.

I've included details of the terrain and forces used, so you can actually re-play this game yourself if you want. If you do, let me know how you get on!

After Action Reports:

Le Bas De Ranville

Random Early War Game

Belgorod-Kharkov

North of Caen III

Four After Action Reports for IABSM3 added:

Softie starts us off with a report on a D-Day game centred around the Paras' defence of Ranville. The scenario was taken from the Summer Special 2006, and you can see other AAR from the same scenario in the Games Day 2008 section of the AARs page.

Next, James Mantos reports on an early war game where the forces and terrain were generated using the new random scenario generator to be found in the IABSM3 rulebook:

An Eastern Front game from the pen of Paul Scrivens Smith featuring action from the Belgorad-Kharkov offensive:

A third outing for the North of Caen scenario from the IABSM3 rulebook, also from Paul Scrivens Smith:

USA - Leg

USA - Motor

Next on the list from the Plastic Soldier Company were some 76mm Shermans with wet stowage (i.e. the ammo was kept wet rather than dry).

These built very nicely indeed: even the usually tricky tracks were not too much of a bother. Lovely kits that take the paint very well: almost too well, as they have come out looking a huge amount smoother than their Battlefront metal and resin equivalents.

Here are some shots of the platoon, and one so that you can compare the Battlefront and PSC tanks.

Here are the Battlefront versions:

And the PSC ones again:

Incidentally, I still prefer to game with the metal and resin tanks from Battlefront (there's something comforting about that weight!) but the PSC plastics are just so well priced, and so much fun to put together and paint, that I think that I shall definitely keep buying them...especially where I need ten to twelve of the same tank.

Next up: the Brits. Some PSC Fireflies and normal Shermans. Two boxes worth! 

Later Germans

Here are my latest tank models from Plastic Soldier Company:  a Zug of Panthers.

Although up to now I have focussed on the early war period and tended to buy Battlefront tank models, with my movement into the later war period I have expanded into using other manufacturers. These Panthers, along with the Panzer IVs, are plastic models from Plastic Soldier Company, and three out of four of the SdKfz 7/1s are from Forged in Battle. 

The reason?  Simple:  expense. I can field five tanks from PSC for at least half the cost of the Battlefront models: worth it when you're buying tanks by the Zug even if in principle you prefer metal to plastic!

One thing to note, however, is that the track assemblies can be a real pain to put together. If you look closely, you can see the difficulty I had in matching the top and the bottom of the track up properly on the bits right at the front and back. I don't understand why they can't just cast the whole track area as one piece, like Battlefront do. It would make life much easier!

Here's another shot of the Panthers:

After Action Report:

North of Caen 1

North of Caen 2

Two AARs from the pen of new-to-IABSM player Paul Scrivens Smith. Both describe fighting the North of Caen scenario from the IABSM v3 rulebook, although one re-fight has been transposed to the desert!

Soviets

Buying Battlefront tanks can be an expensive business, so recently I've been augmenting my collection by adding platoons of Plastic Soldier Company 15mm tanks to my core Battlefront platoons.

Next onto the building/painting table were the T-34s...or, as I should say, the T-34s and the T-34/85s, as each kit comes with two turrets and guns allowing you to field both. That's one hull and two turrets per model : damn good value if you ask me!

Building them proved easy: even the track assembly wasn't too difficult (unlike the flipping Panthers I'm working on now which are a right pain in the arse). Painting them was equally easy.

So, in summary, PSC T-34s (and 85s!) are highly recommended, even if their weight (or lack of) does take some getting used to.

After Action Report:

Defending Kobrin

Later Germans

Coming soon:  Plastic Soldier Company T-34s/T-85s.

After Action Report:

First Game of IABSM

USA

Here is the LCVP (Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel) set from Battlefront. The ships are nice models, and paint up well, but the infantry-being-carried were bloody awful: badly cast with none of the usual detail.

Incidentally, the infantry come in strips of four half-bodies. I mounted six strips in two rows of three on a thin base so that I can either have the LCVPs full of men, or empty, or put a vehicle in them.

These three are now all ready to carry the Rangers ashore for the fourth scenario from the Sicily pack: Gela 1!

After Action Report:

Down on the Farm

Chris Stoessen converts one of the scenarios from the new IABSM v3 rulebook:

After Action Reports:

An Ace In The Pack

Retirata! Inferno!

First up, more winter warfare goodness from Kev. Amazing terrain and figures.

And we have an AAR from Sicily courtesy of Victor.

Later War Germans

You can see where the wash hasn't taken to the underside of the far vehicle's gun barrel: something I shall correct in just a moment!

After Action Reports:

Drive on Minsk: Armour Clash

CDS Pictures

After Action Reports:

A Warm Bed For The Night

Loads of painting done over the Christmas holiday. Click on the pictures to go to the gallery page for those models.

First up, a couple of Wespe self-propelled guns for my nascent later war German force. These are Battlefront miniatures, and painted up very nicely indeed.

With the forthcoming launch of my IABSM-based, company-sized, sci-fi rules, I also spent a lot of time painting sci-fi figures. The biggest holiday project was painting up the Chewks from Khurasan: they are cracking models a bit like the Jawas from Star Wars.

One of the best things about Khurasan is that they make an effort to produce figures that will give you more than just infantry squads: as a rule, each of their ranges (and they have many!) have infantry, command, support weapon and vehicle models...and lovely models they are too. Particularly good are the Chewk drilltanks: vast tunnelling AFVs which come with option to have a chewkannon artillery piece mounted on a boom arm. Here they are in troop carrying mode: click to go to the gallery to see the whole range.

Other manufacturers are also realising that they need to produce entire ranges rather than just infantry squad models. Highlander Studios, manufacturers of the excellent Space Bug range, have augmented their basic offering with anti-tank, anti-aircraft and flamethrower teams: also painted up over Xmas.

Finally we go back to Khurasan again for some APCs for the Karkarine Landser "shark-headed" infantry from their Pelagic Dominate range. Called, appropriately, Karkwagons, these are all plastic kits that are really nice to paint. They seem a bit small for the size of the Karks themselves i.e. it looks like it would be a tight fit to get a squad of seven inside...but they will look good on the tabletop anyway!

So that was Christmas 2011: a couple of cracking games of IABSM3 (see the AAR below) and a load of painting. About 150 foot and nine vehicles: not Kev standards, but not bad! Roll on 2012!

After Action Reports:

New Year's Eve

An AAR from the last battle of 2011. A tale of mismatched sides and an attempt at shameful gamesmanship!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

AND BEST WARGAMING WISHES FOR 2012