Tobruk Saved and Volkssturm.

Last night at the club we had jumped to WWII and the Western Desert, somewhere outside Tobruk, the rules were Battlegroup and the figures etc. 15mm. The gist was that an Axis armoured group had broken through the main British defences and were making a run for several British supply dumps and their gun line. I took the good guys and had to hold off the Italians (Simon) and Germans (Andy) until possible reinforcements turned up, which would be handled by Rob.

I had a couple of 25pdr's and two 2pdr's along with some infantry, not a lot of the latter the Italians turned up first in several waves, light tanks to the front and heavier machines to the rear, further back were trucks loaded with infantry. The Jerries when they turned up arrived with three PzIII's. As the Italians raced to hit my left flank I dropped artillery on them along with some AT rounds from the 2pdr's, none of this had much effect, just as I got going some Eytie bombers turned up and thankfully did not make the best of their run. I continued to drop HE and was then forced to load AP, the small tanks started to brew up, although it was the 25pdr's doing the damage, the useless crew on the left hand 2pdr were just that, useless.

The Germans now turned up and struggled over the large hill rather than go round, this delayed them a bit but not by much, a wall of enemy tanks were now in front of my position, also on the left the remaining little tank had tried to drive over my AT gun which it missed but it did manage to take one of the supply dumps to my rear. The dice gods now turned in my favour as tank after tank blew up or it's crew abandoned ship, I had a great round and stopped the enemy advance in its tracks. It was also fortunate that my reserves had turned up and several Matildas took back the captured supply dump and turned the luckless enemy tank to charred rust. It did not go all our way and another annoying Italian bomber turned up, several elements lost members and one of the Matildas brewed. Mortar fire was also hitting our right flank and again inflicting small but mounting losses. Wait, more British tanks turned up, A10's I think, the Germans and their Allies looked crestfallen, it was time to count the losses. It turned out to be a win for the British, it had looked good at one point for the Axis but a couple of good turns stopped them dead and with the arrival of the British tanks the writing was on the wall. Apart from that one foray by the little Italian tank the enemy effort simply didn't get off the ground. A good little game, Battlegroup is a quick play set of rules and is perfect for a club night, my only reservation is that every time you shoot you have to take a sighting test, if you make the test and throw a shell at someone why would you then forget where they were seconds later for your second shot?

Full night at the club, two SAGA games, two Age of Sigmar and our Battlegroup game.

Maybe I should take up fantasy?

  The defenders of the Reich are finished, I now have a mish mash of kids, old men and veteran soldiers willing or not to give their all for Adolf Hitler and to stop the Red Menace. I have to say the Last Levy is a great resource for the Volkssturm and Hitler Youth and the figures are really good, out of the twenty there is only one which looks a bit out of place to me and there are several others which are simply superb. My particular favourites are the HJ lad in shorts who has the look of a born leader (or fanatic), the Party Official and the war weary veterans, a nice touch is the soldier lying down firing round a brick wall with that gun that shoots around corners. There are also a couple of soldiers armed with the Fliegerfaust, a hand held weapon like the Panzerfaust but intended to bring down ground attack aircraft, there is a photograph of the weapon lying in the ruins of Berlin, possibly used against ground targets at that late stage but it was certainly never issued in any numbers, it was also pretty useless anyway against aircraft.

Old guys.

Weary veterans.

Hitler Youth

 I have just received another tank, or rather the first of my assault guns, an SU76 made by Warlord, a resin and metal kit which is quite nice, it does need a bit of cutting with a sharp knife but went together painlessly. There was a little stand of ammo for the cabin but I didn't put it in as had I done so I think the crew would never fit. I have taken advantage of a bundle sale from Rubicon for two assault guns which I will build into an SU100 and an SU122. These are probably more than enough from my Russian forces but I aim to add at least five more vehicles so that I can cover every combination for the late war period, and a few trucks as well, looks like my birthday and Christmas is solved.

I am also halfway through the squad of Soviet assault engineers, again from Warlord and again a really lovely set of figures, these guys are going to double up as tank killers, engineer teams an SMG squad or even assault engineers.