Bag the Hun USN and IJN

Some more planes for Bag the Hun (or Cruel Seas) to try to make the games more balanced!

Firstly for the USN three SB2C Curtis Helldiver    :

Secondly eight F4F Wildcats:

For the IJN three Mitsubishi G4M Betty bombers:

To add to the fighters six Mitsubishi J2M3 'Jack':

According to the catalogue these should have been Kawasaki NIK2-J Shinden (George) but in fact I think they are Jack's as the George looks nothing like this!:

I much prefer the green paint job for the Japanese and considered repainting the ones I'd already done in white but decided not to! With the Wildcats being less effective than the Hellcats I did previously hopefully this will make our games a bit more balanced. 

As ever this project has grown a fair bit, being pleased with the Japanese bombers I might add a few more and I already have four Lightnings to paint for the Americans!

Space Weirdo's Game 3

Having missed game 2 in which the group escorted some goods across the desert I joined in game 3 after playing Sean's Florentine Condotta in the afternoon.

This time the crew had to advance through jungle to an abandoned mine, see if it was being used and, if it was, explore it and try to capture some of the mined goods. 

Having enjoyed the last game I'd actually got a copy of the rules and created my own character, John Steed the Man from the Ministry (I knew I'd find a use for Steed and Mrs Peel from 'The Avengers'!). 

More of Gary's great terrain:

Steed is in the first transport vehicle:

Attacked and knocked down by a flying Goblin!:

Back on his feet as his companions dispatch the Goblin:

About to enter the compound a robot defender attacks:

Again the crew join in the fight:

The robot runs away but Steed chases it:

Umbrella v robot action!:

The robot takes a battering:

It is finally dispatched:

Having cleared the compound the crew move on to the mine entrance:

Teleporting through rock on of the crew takes the fight to the defenders:

Lasers blast in all directions with the defenders getting the worst of it:

Confused action in the narrow tunnels:

Steed advances to escort some of the mined goods out of the complex:

Bodies of the defenders are strewn around:

At this point the defenders slunk away leaving the crew victorious!

Gary's detailed scenery and narrative make for a great game and, for someone who almost always plays 1v1 games, different with a larger number of players. Steed saw more action in the first part of the game partly as the scenario was more suited to his 'bash them over the head with the umbrella' approach and partly as by the second half I was tiring a bit and didn't fancy rushing down the tunnel into massed laser fire!

ADLG Venetian Condotta v Florentine Condotta

An Italian civil war saw my Venetians taking on Sean's Florentines as a practice game for the club ADLG competition this weekend. 

I thought I'd try something different to get some figures out of the box that hadn't seen the light of day in years so went for a very small army of 12 knights and 6 light horse with all the generals included. The idea was to make a frontal charge if appropriate or, maybe, move around one flank then make a frontal charge!

The terrain fell kindly for the Venetians with a few fields on the Venetian side of the table and a waterway narrowing the frontage. With three largely identical commands deployment was simple, knights to the left, knights in the centre and, yes, knights to the right! The left and centre immdeiately advance:

The Florentines advance their centre and refuse the flanks:

Initial shooting sees both Venetian Turkish light horse take hits:

Swiss pikemen attack a Venetian sub-general while the Florentine light infantry inflict a hit on a knight this time:

Unfortunately the sub-general fails to hold off the pikes and takes a hit:

The wider picture:

The fighting sub-general fails to move the rest of his knights up to support him and gets flank charged by some archers while the Swiss pike charge the knights who failed to move:

The sub general falls in combat and the knights are failing to make an impact:

More knights fall and the small Venetian army breaks giving the Florentines a win:

A fun game with a different idea using so many knights but the army suffered from the inevitable problems of no screening for the knights against shooting, included generals being vulnerable and unable to command the rest of their troops and the break size being so low. 

Sean's army was more traditional and I'll be interested to see how he does in the competition!

MWWBK North West Frontier Force

An addition to my armies for Men Who Would Be Kings in the form of a small 20mm force for the North West Frontier inspired partly by Gary wanting to build a force for the rules and a 25% off sale from Newline Designs in January!

Bengal Lancers:

Sikh infantry #1:

Sikh infantry #2:

Sikh infantry #3:

Ghurkha's: 

Mountain gun and crew:

All of these were painted with the new Army Painter 'speed paints', the first time I've used these. Reviews of them seemed mixed but I found them fine as long as you accept that they are indeed 'speed' paints and aim to produce a reasonable result quickly. They certainly have their limitations (not that many colours, no possibility to paint lighter colours over darker ones or do complicated things like stripes, checks or shield designs) but I'm happy with the results for an army that probably won't get that much use and really didn't take long to paint!

Rommel Scenario 6 "Relief" Late War Americans v German

After Andy's narrow victory in our last refight of Juno Beach this game saw my Americans taking on Andy's Germans in a vaguely 'Battle of the Bulge' refight.

In this scenario a quarter of the attacker's force is trapped in an isolated 'pocket' holding an objective and has to be relieved by the remainder of the force establishing a supply line by nightfall.

Having played this scenario a few times it is always interesting and there are a number of ways you can approach it. Being the attacker this time I went for a force consisting of some paratroopers from the 101st Airborne to hold the pocket objective and a strong 52nd Armoured CC together with a weaker 104th Infantry CC to attempt the relief supported by as much artillery as I could manage to really beef up my attacking options.

Initial deployment with the Americans 'hidden' and the Germans spread out across the middle of the table:

The American forces are revealed. The plan is to use the 52nd CC to push through on the left while the 101st holds the objective and the 104th CC acts as a reserve and defends the artillery:

The 52nd CC begins to move to the left in some cagey early turns:

The initial attack by the 52nd CC is disastrous with the Germans inflicting severe losses on the attacker:

A German counter-attack finishes off a couple of the damaged battalions:

The Germans also attempt to assault the 101st but are thrown back with heavy losses. This persuades the German commander that it isn't worth taking the tough paratroopers on again!:

The 52nd CC continue to push forward to achieve the breakthrough and are succeeding in thinning out the German defenders:

The push is going well now with the German defences weakening forcing them to commit more troops from other areas of the lines. The 104th infantry CC is still uncommitted, soon I'll need to decide where to use them:

The Germans re-establish their lines with the units drawn from elsewhere. This fight is going to be close!:

The 52nd makes another attempt to break through:

Success! The 52nd is battered and bruised but through the German line and has the beleaguered 101st in clear sight. The 104th has finally been committed to support the remnants of the 52nd:

Can the 52nd hold on against German counter-attacks?

Observing the relief column the 101st moves out to help the relief force and keep the gap open:

German forces are weakened, scattered and have issues with different units being mixed up. None-the-less they still think they can defeat the almost equally weakened Americans and viciously counter-attack where they can:

The thin line of Americans holds on though, sometimes by the narrowest of margins:

After three additional turns night falls with the Americans holding on to their objective and opening a supply line to it giving them a victory with heavy losses on both sides:

As ever a cracking game which sort of went down to the wire in that right up until his last move Andy almost broke the supply line I'd developed on the left making the last few turns very tense.

However, as often happens in Rommel, in the heat of the fight we both became fixated on the efforts of the 52nd CC to break through in an intense battle. Andy threw more and more troops into the fight from the rest of his lines and by the end most of his force was involved in the fight. In my case I was probably a little tardy in using the 104th to support the 52nd.

The result of this was that Andy had inadvertently allowed a supply line to be created on the right of the table by withdrawing too many units leaving big gaps in his lines so, even if he had stopped the 52nd, I'd still have won anyway which I'd realised a couple of turns before the end and was desperately hoping Andy didn't notice!

For me the plan I had worked well, though I think I got the roles on the 52nd Armoured CC and the 104th Infantry CC wrong in that I made my initial attack with the fast moving 52nd and left the slower 104th in reserve when it would have been better to have more mobility in the reserve where it was needed. My initial plan had included the possibility of drawing most of Andy's Germans on to the 52nd then advancing up the other side of the table with the 104th (which was partly why I committed them so late) but in fact they just wouldn't have moved fast enough where the more mobile 52nd would have had a better chance. 

Andy will choose the next scenario we play and I'm looking forward to what he comes up with!