2nd Nassau

This is a unit I have wanted to do for many years.  It represents the 2nd Nassau of the 2nd Dutch Belgian Division at Waterloo, the one that held La Haye, Papelotte et al on the far left of the Anglo-Allied army.

I am really pleased how these 15mm Old Glory figures have turned out and I'm really amazed that I got them finished within ten days of receiving them.  Go me!

20NsLN in line (yes there are only 19 figures, but it is the bases that count).

In column. The flag is from Warflags, I did a capture then an insert into Excel where I resized it.

Except for the pant leg, I avoid doing any of the yellow piping. 

 Perhaps the green is a bit bright, but at least they will be visible on the table top.  

.A very attractive unit, even if I do say so myself.

Just a test to see if they fit on a playing card, which in my very crude understanding is the new Blucher rules standard unit template (I might be wrong, but it is a useful thing to know in case I wanted to use cards as unit blinds at any stage).

My Tigers

This post was inspired by this one at Paul's blog:  http://plasticwarriors.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/tiger-time-with-dave.html

There is nothing new here, in fact the very reverse.  The Airfix Tiger I did a long, long time ago, I'm thinking early teens.  It might have been based on an Airfix magazine article, or I might have used the Roco Mini Tank as a template.

The road wheels are missing (which tends to make me thing I was following an magazine article when I made this - needed Panther wheels).  There is some plastic card in use (it was very rare stuff when I was growing up in Adelaide in the 1970s), but mostly I have used Plasticine.

The black tracks mean this model is not as old as I thought it was, but it might have been a cannibalization of two kits.  The body being an old model of mine (if you look closely you can see I assembled the gun barrel wrong) and the tracks from a mate's model that was probably a wreck.  But I'm guessing.

An actual transfer in use which is rare for me.  You can see I have mainly tried painting on detail.

The Roco Mini Tank (or at least I think it is).  1/87th scale.  Nice little model, but a tad too small, especially for a Tiger.  You wouldn't think maths was my best subject given how I've painted the turret numbers.

Given the identical colour schemes I must have done these in the same timeframe.  Would have been good old Humbrol enamels.

Still painting on the detail (and insignia).

An opening hatch.  How cool is that!

These are a more recent acquisition, this century at least.  They were on special at Cancon one year and obviously I couldn't resist.  The command tank is remote control.

Can't remember the brand, but they are the ones that come fully assembled and painted.

They mean business.

Sadly the first two picture models (the Airfix and Roco) were in my spares box.  Lucky for them Paul's post won them a reprieve and a chance for 15 minutes of fame.

An Ace in the Making

Even if I don't get another kill, our Wings of Glory campaign got off to a flying start for me.

I'm the Camel with the green spot, Mark B is the Camel with the red spot.  Greg has the yellow Fokker and Stephen N who organised everything and supplied everything is the stripy Fokker.

All lined up.

Of course after all that organising and making the game happen etc, etc, Stephen is the first to go down.  The explosion cards were played with a modification, but it was deadly all the same. A short time later Mark B shot down the other Fokker.

Luckily at this stage Stephen didn't decide to pack up his models and go home.  The night was still young, time for another sortie in our campaign.

Same plane allocation as before.

A narrow miss.  The collision caused no damage on my plane.

The skies are safer after I shoot Greg's Fokker down.

This time Stephen got in a kill against Mark B.

But I had him in my sights and down he went making my third kill of the evening and the campaign.

Both games were very quick.  The only problem we had was with the a/c going full blast some cards got blown away.  I guess it added atmosphere.

Seeing how I am doing so good, here is my unofficial leader board.

I expect Stephen N to post the official results on the NWS blog.

1920 Battle of Warsaw - movie

Not a period I know much about.  For some reason as a person who grew up with scares of "reds under the bed" and toppling dominoes (my takeaway from the reason Australia was involved in Vietnam), this battle that stopped the spread of communism in the early days when it was trying to take over the world by force, this was critical battle never got mentioned.

I enjoyed the movie.  This trailer gives you a good feel for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DstyaGotWFM

Lots of massed infantry and cavalry charges.  Like WW1 but with movement and less artillery.  Would be interesting to game, if you could get the scale right; I'm thinking something like Megablitz.

Wargame Rules Observation and a bit more on basing

This was another post that is of interest to me, for two reasons this time:

1. It looks similar to the recent Blitzkrieg Commander game I played.

2. (and more importantly) there is some good commentary about the selection of wargame rules.

It is also from Doug's Dots of Paints blog which ties into my previous post as I really like his basing style for his Napoleonics.

http://dotsofpaint.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/davemcns-big-1941-russian-front-battle.html

Of course, the wargame rules in use can have a great impact on figure basing.  I have painful memories of this in moving to WRG Ancients 7th Edition.

For the record my 15mm Napoleonics are based for Napoleon's Battles (3/4 by 1 inch for 2x2 infantry and 1 by 2 inches for 2x2 cavalry, although I would prefer at times for the cavalry to be 2x1).

My 1/72nd scale Napoleonics are becoming singles, but otherwise were based to Napoleon's Battles, but with about a 50% increase - 30mm by 40mm for infantry (2x2) or 15mm by 20mm for a single infantry and 20mm by 40mm for a single cavalry figure.

My 15mm WW2 are based for Flames of War, although I don't use those rules.

My 1/72nd scale WW2 are based on multiples of 30mm, for no particularly reason except this seemed to work and fits in with Crossfire.  For both WW2 scales I don't tend to base vehicles.

My 15mm ACW is based for Fire and Fury.

My 15mm Ancients and Medieval are based for WRG 7th which is now the ubiquitous basing style covering at least DBA, Field of Glory and Impetus.

The few fantasy 28mm figures I have are based as singles, but if I got serious I would probably go with HotT basing.

Another post I have been working on for some time now after my experiences with Sails of Glory and Napoleonic naval rules is about models/figures or the game.  Which comes first?

Towards larger units

I'm linking to this post as it raises some issues about basing that are of interest to me.



Black Powder Games: A landslide towards larger units: Your opinion ple...: The new experimental format.  4 x 75/75 mm bases with 24-28 miniatures per unit. When I first started out building my Franco-Prussi...

1945 Soviet Breakthrough Attack

Yesterday Richard and I had a game of Blitzkrieg Commander using a few models from his magnificent collection.  Late war Breakthrough Attack.  I was lucky to go Soviet.

The German right flank included this village.  Everything is Richard's except the minefield markers and some of the entrenchments. 

The German left flank was more open.  The whole position was well protected by minefields with the troops well dug in.

A very strong force of assault engineers head for the village.

Turn 2 or 3 after the Katyushas had blasted village and smoke was laid to cover the engineers (who had thankfully reached the wire in time).  Yes, the photo has been edited - we didn't have enough cotton wool to fully show the smokescreen.  The engineers had taken a few casualties getting this far and I was lucky that I had been able to get them to dismount before they really got shot up.

A force of IS-2s had arrived on the Soviet left flank on Turn 1, but didn't actually go much further than this.  Their long range allowed them to take on the German Stugs with ease.  Again a smoke images added post taking of photo, I've also patched the lower left hand corner as that was the edge of the table and it spoiled the look to leave a corner of table cloth on show.

A unit of T34/85s with tank riders moves up to exploit the gap cleared by the engineers, but by this time, Turn 4 (out of a possible 12), it was all over.

All the destruction done by the Katyushas, with a little help from the the IS-2s and some incidental work by a few other troops, had broken the German morale.

Observation

We were careful to play strictly to the set-up, but the wide front allows the attacker to focus on a very narrow front and combined with the scheduled bombardments results in a pretty overwhelming situation.

I need to do some analysis of what it would be like to attack down the length of the table.

Some other analysis might be warranted on the placement of defensive troops so they are each outside a radius of a rocket strike of each other.

Regardless, we had four hours of play, including set-up, with a set of well integrated rules, even if a tad abstract.