Friday 15 March 2024

View From The Window: Special Edition

 "Let's go to Lancaster" says the missus as our house is again home to the builders, cue the rain. We can stop by Bathroom Supplies for a toilet roll holder, towel and soap holders, fairy snuff says I as I only have some details to put my latest, large, map project to bed. Enters what seems to be an empty shop, ten minutes later we form a search party for the owners and set off. Having at last succeeded in tracking someone down we swiftly wished we hadn't as the price for the three everyday items came to around £200. We left sharpish.

We decided on lunch before some shopping, we normally go to a basic but excellent chinese restaurant, it must be because all the Chinese students eat there, but instead walked a bit further to 'German Doner Kebab' as we had been intrigued by the name. I looked at the professionaly taken photographs of what was on order and chose the Doner Quesadilla, the missus had a Doner burger, yep, seems you can put anything between a roll. My meal turned up minus the lovely looking pot of salsa on the photograph, I made my way to the counter, you forgot my salsa says I, there is no salsa with the Quesadilla she says, yes there is, there it is on the photograph, no, that's just a photograph she insists, yes but one with a pot of salsa on it. Does the Doner Burger come without the burger because it is just a photograph I enquire but watch my caustic remark fly over her head and disappear behind the drinks machine. I rarely complain about food, I leave that to my sons and my wife, but this time I am going all the way to Glasgow, yes, that's where the head offices of 'German Doner Kebab' are!

What I got.

What was promised.

Then as we walked back to the city centre I ran the gauntlet of morons texting while expecting oncoming normal people to move aside, the sheer amount of these creatures leaves me without words, well I actually do have words but this is before 9 pm. I also do not move from my intended path.

Things were not improving, the wife bought one item in a store where only one of the six tills had a server at it, and who would be there at this till but a Gen Z'r texting while the assistant passed a large family's clothing allowance for the year through the zapper while her mother ran to and fro collecting even more clothing. I tried to get the missus to leave the growing queue on the basis they didn't really want money or there would be more people.

Coffee and a cake then home the Memsahib promised. We found a table, hunkered down and I waited to be served hand and foot while she went to get the drinks and eats, wait, on the opposite table sat a guy with a glass of water taking up a table of four seats piggy backing on the cafe's wifi while doing god knows what on his laptop for free. This annoyed me, I tried to appear interested in what the wife was saying but my eyes kept straying to the free loader next door, hoping someone would force him to buy something or move. That doesn't happen these days, I do remember when I had the paper shop and someone would blatently pick up a newspaper and leaf through it, I would quietly sneak up and whisper, this is not a library!

At last we headed home, I felt the urge for some beers, just bog standard British beer with an alcoholic kick as a change from zero as it might put a smile on my face, but mainly to sit and sup with some Walkers square crisps, cheese and onion while catching up on the latest episode of Shogun. The supermarket had every beer or lager from Paris to the Urals but no bog standard booze, the only square crisps they had were salt and vinegar, so back to zero alcohol for me. Then I tried to pay for it, the 'fast' checkout had a queue of 10 patiently and not so patiently waiting for the new assistant to speed up while, yes, only one of the six tills had someone in attendance.

A poll this afternoon in Lancaster.

So endeth the day.

Thursday 14 March 2024

Volksgrenadiers Again And Some Entertainment News.

 Every now and again I get a run of decent TV and I seem to be hitting the mark at the moment. Still engrossed in Korean drama for my staple but recently came back to 'Fargo' (Prime) having caught up with Season 4 and started Season 5. Superb stuff, not a dud amongst them, I like to think of Fargo as TV for grown ups, rightly or wrongly.  'The Gentlemen' has kicked off on Netflix and the first episode was thoroughly enjoyable and is set to be a typical Guy Richie 'Allo Geezer' wheeze full of colourful, larger than life characters. I am still following 'Masters of the Air' (Apple) although it seems to have morphed into more of a POW drama and just by luck it would seem I will get all of it before I am cut off, with only a day or two to spare. Now, 'Shogun', (Disney+), I was determined not to like this from the trailers showing the woman slaying Ronin in droves but I was stuck one evening and gave in, so far so good, the whole Samurai vibe is hard to resist and it has been very well done. So there you go, for once the televisual famine has receded but the movie famine continues, but really with all the above, where would I have the time to watch one for more than the usual ten minutes before searching for the remote.





Rob offered a game and we decided to go for the Ardenne 1944, I again brought my Volksgrenadiers, four squads, sniper, MMG, mortar, Sdkfz 222 and a Flakpanzer (38t), oh, and a panzerschrek, the full Monty for 1,000 points while Rob took three squads of American Paratroopers with two mortars, MMG, bazooka and an M5 Stuart, a total of 700 points. The Yanks were Green and in a quiet area and dug in when the Battle of the Bulge took place, they had to defend a small hamlet and stop the Germans taking it to facilitate their planned armoured breakthrough.

I sneaked through the wooded terrain keeping away from the edge and also brought on my armour taking care to keep it away from the M5 which although not a great tank it was better than mine with their 20mm cannon and paper armour. I had planned to hit both flanks but in the end attacked the centre and right of the American position, my armour managed despite the entrenchments to weaken a squad defending a hill and the road. While this was happening I lost my mortar spotter so the thing had to be run to the front so it could actually see something to shoot at (it's Bolt Action), my sniper who had been rushed to the front without doing the sniper course hit nothing all game and I was too frightened to move my MMG into the open.

Dug in Yanks.

Brave defenders of the Reich.

Lt. Gruber's little tank.

Nevertheless it was time to close the deal, my squads marched into assault rifle range of the American positions and casualties began to climb among the Ami's. Some of my squads took hits and although one stayed Green the other two turned into regulars, as I said, it's Bolt Action. The sheer volume of fire now hitting the Yanks brought down several squads and teams, enough for Rob to raise a white flag as the grenadiers got ever closer.

Rob's little tank.

Flakpanzer in action at last, lovely 3D print.


The end as the Volksgrenadiers move in.

The entrenchments were a real pain and I was having to throw a six then a second one to score a hit, thankfully my dodgy German themed dice for once did not let me down, and I slowly whittled down the opposition until I got closer. Rob may have been able to counter with his third squad and the M5 but his men were vulnerable to fire once they had left their defences, the M5 actually hit the Flakpanzer but only stunned the crew, a very lucky escape for me. So another agreeable game with Mr M.

Much like the richness of TV programmes above map work is now heading my way at a steady pace, I am finishing off a mini atlas type project and have some maps for French Armies of the Thirty Years War up next along with additions to Bloody Streets: The Battle for Berlin, concentrating this time on armour, artillery and assault groups and the flak towers, with a new series on the Eastern Front later in the year from the same author.

I almost forgot, a journalist is up in arms (of course he is) and asking why there are no black people in the TV series Shogun, set in Japan in 1600AD, one wag answered with "Because they were in Africa", it tickled me. 

I have given in and ordered up some new figures, time to get the paints out again, nothing earth shattering, just some looters and villagers suitable for the Italian Wars to use as interesting vignettes and scatter.

Wednesday 6 March 2024

Ein Volk, Ein Rubbish.

 Bolt Action this week against Michael's Yanks, not an army I would use myself as I find rules make excuses for them, much like Romans and Normans as if they do not want to offend with an intimation they might not be as good as the general public and movie makers think. I had this mindset when I read my first set of rules back in the olden days, WRG 1925-1950, and could not understand, having been brought up with Hotspur, Valiant and Commando comics why the British would need to take a morale test, and horror of horrors even fail!

I digress as usual, I decided to do something different and took a Volksgrenadier platoon supported by a Brummbar, veteran squad (for which I used my Kriegsmarine in order to only take one box) and a panzerschreck. This was out of my comfort zone as Bolt Action does not do justice, in my opinion, to Volksgrenadiers and their organisation is not historical. They are green and of course carry a fair number of assault rifles whose range is much less than rifles and therefore need to be carefully husbanded yet manouvered close to the enemy. I have the figures so why not.

The scenario involved an aircraft about to crash on the battlefield with important papers aboard, whoever had the most troops closest to the plane at the end would win, where the plane crashed was unknown to both sides. I actually have a nice shot down FW190 but at the moment cannot get to it, a shame. I deployed troops at both ends of the table to use the available cover to get close to the enemy, completely forgetting the plane was likely to come down in the centre area. Michael was more spread out and covered the centre with two squads, he had an anti-tank gun opposite my left and a Sherman opposite my right. I was quite aggressive and moved my men up quickly deciding to take losses in order to hopefully take advantage of my assault rifles to even things up.

My less than enthusiastic boys.

Yanks.

 Bolt Action has this rule whereby troops which, although green, may contain more experienced men, so when a green squad loses a casualty you roll a die and they can suddenly turn to regulars or even veterans, they can also take more pins so it is not all good news, but the odds are you will suddenly have a regular squad at your disposal. Anyway as the bullets flew both my right flank squads became regular, I smirked inside.Then disaster struck, both those squads now failed morale tests and for two of the games' six turns did nothing, on the other flank my heavy assault gun opened on Michaels right hand squad and caught them all under the template, only throwing ones would save them, out of eight dice I got five ones! The scream of an aeroplane engine now rent the air and down came the wounded bird, almost right in the centre where I had nothing but close to several Yankee squads, I stared defeat in the eye.

Volksgrenadiers.

Brummbar.

A very cautious Sherman.

In the Navy.

I now pushed the heavy tank along the road in order to wipe out any Americans near the crash site while attempting to move some men to the site despite their lousy morale. Twice the tank shrugged off hits from the anti-tank gun but just as I needed it to survive and move it succumbed. The game limped into one extra turn and this allowed me to get my panzerschreck team to dispute the objective, but only just, if Michael had assaulted them instead of trying to shoot them he would have wiped them out and won, instead I had managed to tip the scales to a draw, not a very satisfactory one for me though, my report card said 'should have tried harder'.

The Volksgrenadiers were very good and their firepower offset their inexperience, but if the enemy get a shot in first it can really hurt them as they die on a three, I was lucky to turn two squads to regulars but their failing their morale twice meant disaster for me, that and as usual trying to kill the enemy rather than taking note of what I had to do to win.

Last week it was another miserable night and a swine to park for some reason with cars all over the place, we only have one back street at the club, by the time I got somewhere I thought it would have been easier to walk to Lancaster, I had thought of staying in with my feet up but I had told Rob I would take part in his Muskets and Tomahawks game so being a man of honour I drove into the dark to navigate the myriad roadworks affecting Lancashire at the moment. 

I was British and in command of four units of irregulars two of which were Scots, I had to make my way to the opposite end of the table where some boats were being protected by a small force of Regulars and Milita and this would earn me points. In between were some American Militia and opposite me at my end of the table were some Indians and American irregulars. I decided to swamp the latter force with superior numbers then make my way to the boats, I was helped in this as Ed (seemingly bouyed up with enthusiasm by the Happy Fairy) split his forces, two units towards me and a couple towards the boats.

Scots wha hae!

Save the boats.

Ed's boys.

I was very aggressive and threw caution to the wind and it paid off, first the Indians were cut down followed by a colonial unit, I was decolonising you see. Michael, defending the boats was having a hard time and for a while it looked like the Americans were getting the upper hand. Somehow Ed's flank attack was held and pushed back, a boat which had been damaged by artillery was repaired and despite the loss of a couple of units Michael weathered the storm. Meanwhile I now pushed my men to attack the rear of the American Militia which had the added bonus of taking pressure off our stalwart boat defenders. The Happy Fairy had seen which way the wind was blowing, left Ed and settled on my shoulder as I gave a poor rendition of British Grenadiers as I finished off Rob's uppity Militia. A British win.


And we are off.

Scots on the other side.

An excellent club game but very brutal and bloody, the sheer number of unique figures Rob can bring to the table always surprises me, especially the irregulars and indians, very impressive and fun to play with.

On the very quiet painting front I completed the final three artillery pieces which were given to me by Dan at the club, the crews are from Casting Room Miniatures as a change from my usual TAG gunners. Now thanks to Dan I have a very useful artillery train for the Italian Wars, I can also put a decent baggage train into the field as well, although I might get a few more wagons. Friend Charles Singleton is building a French army based on the battle of Bicocca 1522 and as he was in the area dropped in for a chat and to show me his Francis I command stand, almost a unit on its own it is very impressive, beautifully done.

Francis I.



More artillery.

Most of the heavy work is done on the War Room, it is now all the other jobs which have to be done and fall into place, electrics, bathroom, flooring and painting, also the old shop front is still there outside, I don't know when that is going. I suspect we might run into May before I am ready to get a game. 


My Apple TV subscription runs out a few days after the last episode of Masters of the Air thankfully, I have actually enjoyed this series and it has brought home the horror of flying heavy bombers during WWII whether RAF or USAAF. You know me, I could moan about some parts but have decided not to, I am keeping that for Shogun.

I see that Dr. Claire Millington, who? Has declared the new and popular Roman Legion exhibition at the British Museum fascist and sexist (of course it is) and, wait for it, "almost exclusively about the soldiers", who would have thought? Another university education not wasted.

Wednesday 21 February 2024

All Things Come To An End

 Well, a quiet week, still seems to be hurry up and wait here, hospital results, calls back, appointments and general real life issues non of which seem to be moving forward.

It was Chain of Command at the club and my Russians vs Rob's Germans, it was an attack and defend game, a misnomer actually as will be explained below. I had a normal Rifle Platoon and was lazy and took it straight from the rule book, I actually researched my own and there are quite a few more historical lists online, but hey, anyway I took a T70 light tank and a 45mm anti-tank gun as supports. Rob took the bog standard late German platoon also from the book and he spent money on an extra support squad one with two LMG's and an infantry gun.

I was defending a ford and the Jerries had to take it, or rely on the easier option of simply driving me from the table. Things got off to a shaky start as heavy rain turned up and reduced visibility to 18", I got two squads on, the right flank ensconced in a brick farmstead, I also later brought on my T70 and the 45mm gun, the latter was a bad move on my part. Somehow Rob miscalculated and one of his squads on my left came within 18", my tank and some infantry destroyed the enemy and things looked good, then the rain stopped. Rob had two more squads on the table, a huge firefight developed and it was here I now realise I made another mistake, I concentrated on his troops in a nearby wood which turned out pointless as he had a Senior Leader attached and despite his men being loaded with shock he always managed to reduce it, the fact I could not actually kill anyone helped his situation.



My little tank, T-70.

The old homestead is still standing.

Wasted my time on these guys.


I lost my little gun and the firefight went on, I also lost a Junior Leader so my morale dropped, then perhaps frustrated, I moved my tank forward and it fell victim to a Panzerschrek team, of course it did. As the time flew past and I was at 4 for morale and Rob was still at 8 (I think) and my troops were holding on and the Jerries saw no need to come forward we wrapped the game up.

Skip this bit if you are not interested in Chain of Command. The 'attacker' has no need to attack, he also gets twice the number of support points as the defender so the smart thing to do is simply set up a firebase and plug away until the defender loses out to morale loss, objective, we don need no steenking objective. The downside is it makes for a very dull game. I fell victim to another annoying mechanic, my left hand squad were pinned, I got the shock down but they remain pinned until the turn ends, this can last all game. Despite the fact there was a lovely brick building within spitting distance my boys could not retreat to better cover, all they could do was sit and die, why?

Anyway when the War Room opens if I play CoC here I will sort out the nonesense above using house rules and, dare I say commonsense. No matter, the night put an end to my run of victories although my lawyers are appealing on the grounds I still held my defensive position when we packed away, kudos to Rob for the win nonetheless, always a pleasure.

I have completed at last the last cavalry unit which I am adding for now to the Italian Wars project, now I turn my attention to the three artillery pieces which have been receiving their Dettol dip for about a week, most of the paint had gone but a sticky residue was left, nail varnish remover really fixed that and left the metal like new. I bought some crews for the guns which I had got from Dan so will get them primed and sorted in the next couple of days. This gives me about 14/15 artillery pieces in all, a nice range from heavy to light.



Keeping on the Italian Wars a new scenario book was being advertised on the Facebook page, the price initially put me off and I waited for someone to do a review as a couple of members had bought the book, but nothing concrete turned up. Despite this I bought it and received it today, it is printed by Amazon, hence the price tag I suspect, seemingly they print it for the author and print one when someone orders it, for a fee of course. I am sure with todays technology it could be done cheaper, but it has been at least 25 years since I printed my own scenario books, and I got the lions share of the profit.


I digress, the book is between A5 and A4, has 97 pages and 20 scenarios, the maps are basic and I suspect more for 15mm figures than 28's but I could be wrong there and will find out in due time. The author has done a lot of work on the scenarios and includes exceptional army lists for three rule sets for each battle; Furioso, Pike and Shotte and Impetus. These come with notes where needed to explain troops types and combat factors. I look forward to fighting all 20 battles and getting my monies worth. I am a happy bunny.

I wasted some time at Morecambe Library, very nice by the way, on Saturday at the Model Show. Not a great deal of warlike models but what there was was very nice, I also talked at length with one of the exhibitors, but declined to join in the end, it's a Tuesday and I have more than enough to keep me going with wargaming. 

Even modellers have more Puma's than the German Army.

Plugging away at some WWI maps for the moment, second project almost done but I am getting combat fatigue.

History of the Royal Fusiliers Brigade "Soldiers and Gentlemen".


Thursday 15 February 2024

A Mixed Bag

 I had my son and grandson over for a gaming weekend so that he could try out his new Underworlds figures and beat me at face to face Blood Bowl as he has tired of beating me online. He is ten years old and amazes me at how well he has picked up complicated rules for a series of games when all it does is make my head hurt and leave me with one strategy, to simply roll better dice. I think in the end I won two Underworlds games (see comment on dice), drew one half of an 11's Blood Bowl game, won a 7's match 2-0 then lost at Wings of War.

Underworlds.

A couple of times I was left floundering and felt like I was being hustled, in James' defence he did tell me to "read the rules Papa" and, once I had made my mistake, was willing to point out what I should have done. What the weekend brought home to me at long last is that I am a wargamer, not a gamer, I am lost with games played on something not usually larger than a draughts board, or built as you proceed with colourful hexes. Three guys (or women Reg) are not armies or warbands, they are game pieces, I am also at a loss to the myriad cards involved in most of these types of games, in Underworlds you will have at least a dozen all with different abilities and rules which if there is an R in the month and it is past 1600 hrs and it is raining you cannot use on an opponent because the moon is in the wrong quadrant and he (or she Reg) has a magic glass slipper.

I have now had about six weeks of enforced non-wargaming here at me Casa, I have also had to abandon a few club nights as well due to circumtances beyond my control. A lot, no, most of my spare time revolves around wargaming, things like scenarios, buying figures, painting figures, researching and playing to name a few, meeting like minded people, finding new opponents and building new armies and entering a new period. I am beginning to get withdrawal symptoms and am desperate to spend money or lay on some games, but I still have maybe two months to go before the War Room is complete. In the meanwhile I am grateful to the guys at the club and Rob and Matt who take the time to set up some wonderful games which I can play in. I would also have to include the bloggers whom I follow, whose exploits I enjoy reading over a cup of good coffee.

I am still painting and am slowly, very slowly finishing off the last six heavy cavalry to add to my Italian Wars armies, I have a couple more bits and pieces but will again take my time. I have quite a lot of mapping to do and for now most of my time will be devoted to finishing these projects.

Dreadful weather this morning as I set off to Penrith for another rendezvous in Matt's dungeon. If you follow Matt's blog you will know he has painted up Tallarn figures of late and I noticed them the last time we played and they are lovely and full of character, so we agreed to play some Xeno Rampant the next time we met. So strap in for a Drop Ship ride to hell.

My Star Ship Troopers.

My Tallarn troops dropped on a desert planet to claim it for the Empire and quickly ended up in a bug hunt, although my guys were actually the hunted and not the hunters. In a few turns I had suffered severe casualties and thought I would be heading back down the M6 tout suite, but just as things were darkest my remaining troops began to fight back and a lot of the bugs hit the deck in brutal hand to hand fighting. It was now time to hit the insects with my mech, this hero dealt out mayhem and the upper hand now lay with my boys, my one remaining squad had retreated in front of a huge monster and now their fire combined with shots from the war mech secured victory for the Empire.

LV-426.
 
This planet is ours.

The monster.

Here they come!

More bugs.

As my exhausted troops reorganised and another drop ship brought reinforcements to boost my command back to normal a new threat appeared, a more sophisticated enemy (Tau) this time had landed to claim the planet for themselves. I drew my men into a defensive position and immediately suffered losses from long range fire, not again I thought. The Tau were being aggressive on my right flank and I concentrated all my fire on one enemy at a time, this was successful and enemy losses approached 50%. Things didn't go all my way and my squads began to lose soldiers, one heavy squad being completely wiped out. I moved all my men into cover and hid while I manouvered them to best bring overwhelming firepower on the remaining enemy. My mech with help from some infantry now brought down the Tau in power armour at which point with the Tallarn moving forward and only one and a half squads left Matt conceded.


The bad guys.

Steady boys.

More bad guys.

Exhuasted but victorious, say cheeeeese!

Xeno Rampant, a new one for me and not a game I would ever buy, I played Lion Rampant once at the club a long time ago. It is very fast and can be very bloody, the only mechanic I didn't like was where you have to get a certain number on two dice to shoot, and if you fail the initiative gets handed over, this can hamper your response to what is happening on the table quite significantly. Now I was pretty unlucky at this on several occasions so this might influence my feelings towards it. Overall it was a bit of fun with some lovely figures and as you can see we managed two games fairly quickly, almost too quickly in the first one. A perfect game for a club night.

If I get no interuptions next week I should be back at the club for a game with Rob, not sure yet what it will be.

The work on the War Room is advancing very quickly, not a good photo but the new wall is mostly up and blocking the light. Although the ceiling has been lowered and the walls brought in the space looks bigger. I think the table tennis table will be lost in there.