Elephants and Bamboo Bows

 Big news this week, for me anyway, is that I have reached the grand old age of 72, yes I know I don't look it but the inside feels about 82. I received some nice books from my Christmas wish list, I have went all digital this year and put a list on Amazon for people to pick from. So far I think it is working.

My presents, one more to come.

I have been searching and adding some 1/72 planes for the odd strafing run on my tables as a side project and to date had sorted an FW190 for late war and a Stuka for early and mid, I also bought a ready built Spritfire kit from my grandson for my Normandy+ British. I had just about given up getting a Russian aircraft until mate Robert told me he had visited an Antique warehouse in nearby Ingleton and they had kits for a decent price. I set off and sure enough found a treasure trove of 1/72 painted, die-cast models. I reined in my wallet and settled on a Yak-3 for my Russians and spoiled myself with a lovely Henschel 123 for the Jerries, I just couldn't resist it. This biplane was operational in the ground attack role up to and after Barbarossa, it was so good on the Eastern Front the Luftwaffe asked for the factories to be re-opened to make more, but they had already been dismantled.

Yak-3 and Henschal 123.

I am continuing to dust my vehicle collection and am about half way through, you can see the effect better on plain painted vehicles but I am committed to giving them all a coating. Meanwhile I have recieved a few more buildings, two rural barns from Empires at War (unpainted) and two houses from Charlie Foxtrot, most of my collection of buildings are Colin's so these will fit well on the table. All this in expectation of more WWII gaming in 2025. Very happy with the Empires of War, we have some at the club but I now know they are 15mm and 20mm and not 28mm due to the size of the barns, might have a word with the treasurer.

Club had our big Christmas game this week, this year we went full on medieval, the table was fairly open and each player had a mounted knight, these were let loose to win Honour and Money fighting against other knights they came across or challenged, there were also tents, a stable, church and blacksmith's where bonus' or not could be picked up. My quest was pretty unspectacular as I found nothing in the first tent and after several combats I had to retire to heal my many wounds, I was inches from death. Once healed I came back to find a large, buxom wench holding tankards of beer whom I 'rescued' and escorted off the table earning me some sheckles. On my return I failed miserably to move very far and then found myself at the mercy of Fran and Dan's dismounted men-at-arms and subsequently expelled from the game. No photographs I am afraid, too many kids there, sorry.

The rules were vaguely Hail Caesar and worked very well for the mayhem which raged throughout the evening, everyone enjoyed themselves and we were treated to Julian's excellent mince pies as always. That's it for this year at the club, we have had a very succesful year with the introduction of new games and new members while having to annex another classroom to contain our growing numbers. We have a Curry night booked for 3rd January and then a return to business as usual on the 7th.

Yesterday Ian turned up with his Classical Indian army for a try at War and Conquest, I was commanding my Seleucids which have only seen at most half a dozen battles since I raised them. I knew Ian would have a lot of bamboo longbows and a few elephants and maybe chariots so I was a bit worried about my lack of protection in getting across the table and into hand to hand combat. I decided to go a bit heavy on skirmishers as a shield, Elephant Escorts with javelin, elite Cretan and Skythian archers and a normal unit, backed by two pike blocks, some mercenary hoplites and a light infantry unit of Thorakiti, oh, and an elephant. Ian deployed and had a solid centre of archers, supported by spearmen and a lot of elephants, I noticed many more in his boxes, on his flanks were light and heavy chariots.

Seleucid and his army.

The Indian King.

Deployment.

 I dithered a bit at first but knew I couldn't stand around for long, so sent my whole line forward, my Skythians were cut down but their morale held and they duelled with the light chariots for most of the game. On the other flank my light cavalry charged and cleared the heavy chariots here and eventually managed to turn and hit the Indian left flank. I kept targetting the elephants with my skirmishers before they fell to the torrents of bamboo arrows, I had success with one elephant which routed and expired when the mahout killed it as it approached its own troops, this rout also meant a unit of spearmen also ran for a time.

Damn chariots.

A formidable enemy.

Get stuck in boys.

My hoplites took some severe casualties as they advanced but at last managed to strike their tormentors who simply could not stand up to them in close combat, this was the same story as my pikes also managed to close with the Indian infantry albeit the White Shields took heavy casualties from the archers on their march forward. It could have been worse but my sacrificial skirmishers did their job against all the odds until they were killed to a man.

My hardy Escorts.

 

Take that small fry.

The Seleucid advance.

 As his infantry fled Ian threw in his elephants, the hoplites were caught in the flank and destroyed while the White Shields fought off two elephants, one the Indian Kings mount. The Thorakiti also managed to hold and eventually kill their beast. I now threw my own elephant into the flank of the triumphant Nellie which had routed the hoplites, my larger animal won through. With his last offensive now stopped and routed Ian handed over his sword.

The end for the Indians.

 This was a very interesting game and I think I was lucky in that it was Ian's first game, his army has a formidable weapon with the elephants backed up by scores of archers and the skirmishing chariots if used well can be a frustrating challenge to neutralise. Where the army falls down a bit is that the infantry component have less than average morale although bodyguards and mercenaries are available, so if contact is made they have a struggle to compete against hoplites and pikes. I felt outnumbered as the Seleucids are an expensive army and was forced into going forward and into close combat as fast as I could, something I would not normally do unless the circumstances are right. Ian also managed some superb shooting dice which sadly, for him, did not continue over to his melee rolls. It was great to fight a WAC battle again and against such an interesting army, I do hope we can do so again as Ian has several ancient armies at his disposal.

That was the last battle for 2024, I have put everything else including map projects on hold until after new Year, I do have those buildings to paint up but that's it. I will do a rerun of the year as usual later. January already has around four games scheduled for here in The Bunker so I will be off to a flying start.

A nice gift from David Bickley, 2025 Calendar from GHQ.

Konigsberg 6 and stuff

 Mate Jimi asked about Star Wars Legion but got no replies so I offered a game of X-Wing, what a headache that turned out to be. I had to dig out my squad builder and repopulate it with all the ships I actually had so I could print out a list, two lists actually as Jimi was completely new to the game. I put several hours aside to do this only to find out as I tried to put a Rebel and Imperial force together before heading to the club that I had lost all the V2 dials. It would seem I had thrown them out while moving everything I had into The Bunker, typical me. I jury rigged ships for the game minus the Milenium Falcon as I could not find a dial for it nor a stand, what a mess with only ten minutes to go. Then, after a tip from the missus I found all the dials!

So we settled in at the club with Jimi not having a clue and me not much better after several years of the game sitting in boxes. Jimi took the Rebels and I was the evil Empire, of course I was. The good guys had three X-Wing's and an A-Wing while I 'flew' Tie's, two Interceptors and four Fighters, the game was maybe unbalanced as my ships had no shields and the Rebels had better points values and shields. As we wrestled with the game we made the obligatory whoosh and laser fire noises while playing the theme from the movie on our phones, it was a laugh. Experience won out and two of the Rebels hit the stardust while I lost an Interceptor.

I went away with a renewed interest in the game despite being one of the worst star pilots in the galaxy and a quest to find the missing dial for the Falcon (now sorted thanks to eBay). Jimi went away to buy into the game, much of which is still available online. As time passes it will be harder to do but for now a patient search can reveal treasure.

Club was busy again with Midgard and Hail Caesar with three lovely games, Ancients and Dark Ages neither of which are my cup of Rosy but the guys were having a ball, especially Ed who was umpiring a beautiful looking game which I forgot to photograph of course.

Back to Bolt Action V3 this week, Operation Barbarossa at the club, I was the bad, bad guys while Simon was the bad, good guys. I decided to go all realistic this time, the heaviest tank I had was a Pz III along with a Pz II and a 5 cm anti-tank gun, and for a first I brought two halftracks and a tow truck. Simon was mainly Soviet infantry backed by his KV2 monster.

I was a bit late so we just set up a table with three objectives, a hill, house and a bridge. I ran my halftracks forward for the two flank objectives and of course reached them before the Russians, most of my strength was on the flanks especially the right where the bridge was. In the centre I sat a squad supported by the Pz III with an idea to eventually contest the centre objective in the house, but if not I had the other two. The KV-2 missed with its first shot and was very disappointing during the rest of the game as well, it did manage a hit which could have taken out my AT gun but failed to kill the crew. Meanwhile I was shooting up the Russian infantry with my small veteran squads.

The boys make a rush for the bridge.

The monster arrives.

My 'heavy' turns up.

As casualties mounted and initiative dice were lost it was obvious the Soviets could not win, we shook hands and called it done. Obviously I enjoyed the game although I am still not sure if V3 is much better than V2, I think if you are happy with V2 then keep the £35 for something you really need.

Today I was back on the Eastern Front but in the dying weeks as the Konigsberg garrison tried to break out. By now both sides had lost figures, the Soviets slightly less than the Germans but enough to cut down some of their firepower. I had some nice support points and again took the T-34/85, two MMG's and a mortar, I was looking to bring a lot of lead to the party. Matt had recruited a Volksturm squad and a Pz IV along with an MMG for support.

Making use of my new snow mat.

I had a hard time building up my firing line as my command dice were basically useless, Matt managed to hide in the one building on his side of the table and bring on his tank, my one squad started to take hits despite their entrenchments. I managed to get several double turns but still struggled to get troops on the table. Once I did manage it was only one squad and my tank, I was still outgunned. Things seemed to pick up as I shot up the MMG in the upper storey of the house, but again my squads were slowly being shot up while my tank could not hit a barn door. The Pz IV managed several times to hit the T-34 and killed the gunner but never enough to cause serious damage, I eventually had to pull the tank back hoping the replacement gunner could eventually manage to hit something, unlike his dear departed mate.

Useless tank, I think the gunner was dead from the start.

A similarly unimpressive panzer.

Those sandbags will save us Comrades!

I now managed to get all my troops on and although I dealt death out to one squad in particular I was losing the dice battle as my squads were whittled down. I was also unlucky in that when I had to take a morale check they were particularly bad and my morale plunged, Matt on the other hand rolled low scores and only lost one morale point. I was torn between withdrawing my remaining two squads into cover and leaving things to the two MMG's and my tank but being down to four dice and suffering heavy casualties I simply withdrew.

Oh no they didn't!

Soviet thin brown line.

Punished but not enough.

We have not played a back and fro game in Phase B and have just played the different maps, this means the Germans are not able to make the victory points needed to win. Maybe we should have gone on but we have now been playing quite regularly despite health problems for a year so I think we will be happy to play one final game. The campaign is a good one but it needs work, many of the maps are simply far too open to provide any incentive to manouvre and they turn into a firefight and who throws best wins. I would also say that the support points are skewed, the German garrison, cut off from supplies gets more support points than the Russians encircling them with decent lines of communication. The Victory Points table begins at 10, the Germans have to get this down to Zero, a very difficult task with the campaign in its present form. Anyway, we have one more game which will now have to wait until after the hullaballo dies down in January, we both have little faith the Russian defenders can win this, cut to ribbons as they are and with only a few fruit trees to hide behind.

A thought jumped into my head about weathering powders, I have always thougth some of my later German three colour camo looked a bit too bright, even after drybrushing and weathering, so I bit the bullet and ordered up some Light Dust by Ammo. I had looked online and a lot of these pigments need 'anchored' with white spirit or some such, I didn't want that hassle and saw one example where the pigment was simply brushed on, that's for me Tommy I thought. The product arrived and I set too, I was more than pleased and there is enough dust in the bottle to last more than two lifetimes, and if it comes off in play then I just brush on more, the effect was even better on the panzer grey of my early war stuff, they now look like they are rushing along French roads in the summer of '40. Brushing the rest of my collection will take a while so that is my project for December.

With and without dust.

Ditto.

I have just finished Ben MacIntyre's new book on the Iranian Embassy Siege and the emergence of the SAS into the nation's and the world's consciousness. As the siege wears on the tension in the book rises as you know what's coming, what you don't know is the why and how it happened, I certainly learned a lot. Highly recommended. As there is still a bit to go before Christmas I have a void before, I might, get the books and graphic novels I have asked for, so until then I opted for a book on the German invasion of Poland in '39. It is something I know almost nothing about except that Polish cavalry did not charge panzers and rumours that the Poles put up a good fight and the Germans were not as brilliant as they made out, we will see. One thing I have always been curious about is that if we went to war for the Poles why didn't we declare war on the Soviets who also invaded the country?

I think that is it for now, my War and Conquest game was delayed until next Friday, next week at the club is the AGM and the Christmas Game and hopefully the Cumbrian Chef's mince pies. Maybe I will get a game over the Holiday period and maybe I will just sit and chill.

One last parting shot in this mad world, the army has a Climate Change and Sustainability Officer and they are looking at, wait for it, electric vehicles. Considering getting to the other end of the country in one involves an amount of planning second only to D-Day, where do you find them on a battlefield?

Midgard arrives, even here.

 Midgard Heroic Battles, Flavour of the Month hardly covers the impact of the latest rules set to hit the streets, and it has arrived here. Stuart set up a Midgard game this week, it was to be simple and two starter armies were to meet in an engagement, Saxons and Romano-British, I brought the latter along as it didn't really matter how many men were in a unit as long as the frontages worked, which they did. My army consisted of two mounted and one foot Comitatus, elite, the rest were average and I had one archer unit along with three Hero's, the Saxons had at least two Hearthguard units, two skirmishers with slings and a bunch of average warriors, I believe they had one more than us, but not as many elite and no cavalry, and four Hero's.

My Romano-British with Stuart's Saxons in the distance.

Now boys, now.

Both armies before a duel which the Saxon Hero loses.

It was a meeting engagement as I mention above, Stuart had the rules and I had watched a few of the videos on how to play, I did give up on these when they got to combat but I had retained some information. I had a conflab with my second-in-command Andy and we decided just to go hell for leather at the enemy, what could go wrong, Stuart and Gary advanced as well but with slightly more caution. I rode down a set of slingers with my cavalry and Andy took on a warrior unit and although hit in the rear he did manage to destroy them before his horse dispersed. Both sides now clashed in the middle, the Romano-British had the upper hand and the Saxon elites were held up and pushed back by one of my average warbands, the Saxon morale now failed and the British were declared the winners.

The rule set is very much 'Heroic' and the leaders play an important part in the game, it really is Arthur of the Britons more than Harold of the Anglo-Saxons, and yes you can introduce Merlin and have a magic sword or ability, or of course you can leave that side of things out and just play Dark Ages, or Early Medieval as it is described in the videos. Both sides can earn or lose Reputation Points and once you lose all your points you lose the game. The combat system is fairly simple and there are several ways you can increase the number of combat dice you throw. No, I would not buy the rules, and this is no reflection on the rules simply the fact they are not my cup of char, I am an Old School Wargamer, I am not as open as many to new rule sets. I like what I like and once I have chosen a set I will stick with them, this can be frustrating as time marches on and I become isolated, but I have been lucky enough not to turn to Solo yet. I would however if offered be happy enough to play them again at the club as they provided a few hours of fun for all concerned, Andy at least was converted.

Have you noticed that new rules never seem to get a bad press, and I am lumping them all in with this, they recieve months of advertising and turn up as a glossy book with oodles of eye candy and photoshoped battles and somewhere in there are the rules. I also find that most in the end are a game, sometimes a good game, but with the pieces being soldiers rather than counters or wooden pegs. I want to have the excitement of throwing in my reserve brigades or unleashing my cavalry in a steel plated tidal wave as the rest of my army stands like a stonewall or dies on the nearest ridge, I want to command an army, not friends and family. In keeping with present trends I wonder if we will soon see Midgard Italian Wars or Midgard WWI.......

I decided a wee while ago to add some airplanes to my WWII forces, I have managed to complete a FW190F-8 which basically took over ground attack from the Stuka and a Stuka for early war games, in the process I found that I do not have the dexterity or patience I had when I was twelve. With the FW there are quite a few bits in the bin because you cannot see the underneath, the Stuka was an easier build, I was impressed with the tiny and complete decal sheets with both, but I only attempted the large ones in both cases. I obviously need something for the Allies and Soviets, I have bought a Spitfire from my grandson and am dithering on providing a Sturmovik for the Soviets, have you seen the price of model kits these days. I quite easily found a plastics outfit which provided the rod and base for the planes and the magnets were easily sourced from eBay.

FW 190.

Stuka.

I also decided to get a Panzer I for my early Germans, there has to be an option to field one of these as they trundle into France, while looking I came across a Mobelwagen on the same site which I had always wanted. They arrived the other day, a bit of a wait but well worth it, both models are beautiful, the gunners on the flakpanzer are a tad small so I will leave the second one off and pop a few Rubicon crew in the box. They were from MarDav Miniatures.

The club is getting ever more busier and there are a lot more games being presented, including many of the newer sets along with old favourites. Our annual Christmas game is being planned and our festive Curry Night has been set for the 3rd January, we seem to need a larger table every year now.

The ACW campaign is approaching the end of its first campaign week with only a few minor skirmishes between cavalry screens so far, both sides seem willing to fight a major battle but not until the odds are in their favour.

Rob turned up today for a Chain of Command action involving his Italians and my French, I was defending while Rob was the attacker. I thought Rob had an uphill struggle on his hands until I realised as Italian tankettes rolled down the road that my own tanks and support could not arrive until Turn 1 had ended.

French deployment area.

The Italians are coming the sheep are nervous.

To make things worse I knew Rob would not end the turn and it was going to take me a long time to get a Chain of Command dice in order to do it, I was not lucky throwing fives. Nevertheless my two squads and grenade team settled down to defend the village, the Italians moved forward aggressively on their right but their left flank stayed put. I popped some smoke grenades to protect my men and prayed I could hold on.

Hide.

The annoying little tankettes.

At last I managed to get the elusive CoC dice and ended the turn, and of course my tanks refused to turn up. Luckily this did not last long and reinforcements eventually took over the duty of defending the village.

Italians.

Even more but hiding.

My R35 was taken under fire by the Italian anti-tank gun which failed to penetrate its armour, it quickly scarpered out of sight and joined the World War I vintage Renault F-17 moving to attack the Italian right, the enemy infantry there beginning to suffer from the attentions of a newly arrived, French infantry squad.

At last the tanks arrive.

French reinforcements.

Forward or whatever in French.

As the French second wave arrived it became obvious the Italians, as in reality, would have to pull back and were not going to achieve their objective, which was a hard ask. I do think Rob missed a chance to pile forward while I had about half my forces still off table, but allied to this is the dismal make up of Italian forces at this point in the war and the dire choices of support. He could have brought a mortar barrage but this is looked upon as a game changer so unless absolutely necessary most players do not use it. We spent a good few hours chatting and playing and it passed a cold day.
 

And that's it, X-Wing will be turning up at the club next week after several years in the boxes as Jimi is showing an interest in Star Wars Legion but X-Wing is the best I can do, it should be fun. So far there is nothing planned in the Bunker for next week but I think real life is taking up most of it.

Konigsberg 5 and more battles

I have just recieved my 1/72 Stuka so this weekend I will build and paint it, I am still waiting for a few things to turn up which were ordered weeks ago. I do not have any Allied planes as the kits are quite expensive online and postage is not cheap. I may just continue to keep my eyes open for bargains, or maybe I should ask Julian or Robert to look for me, they are the Del Boys of cheap deals.

I did get my Sdkfz 231 (6-rad) and a very nice print it was, I finished it in panzer grey and put a cross on it, the only markings they had, although I saw one photograph with a name on the side. It looked very bare and plain, the obvious choice was a flag, the kind used to identify the vehicles to the Luftwaffe, very popular from '39 to at least '41, but of course this would mean showing the swastika. What do I do, would this get me a Non Crime Hate Incident report if someone took umbrage and ruin my reputation as a valued member of the community. I decided that history was on my side and duly put it on. The same dilemma applies to my new Luftwaffe ground attack aircraft which carried a swastika on the tail, it is not supplied by model manufacturers in case it turns you into a rabid fascist, although funnily enough I did get one with my 1/48 FW190. I could have just left it off or stuck a black square on as many do but no, I ordered up some decals to make the planes right. In the past I wouldn't have given a thought to this, but it is not the past.

A lovely 3D print.

Anyway, I managed to source a cheap 1/72 FW 190F-8 ground attack fighter in a local shop in Morecambe and duly built it up, it was a bit of a struggle after having built my last airplane kit nearly sixty years ago. I left quite a few pieces in the bin, especially the wheels as they didn't seem to fit very well when put up in the wheel bay but as no one will see the underneath as it zooms past I felt justified. I also struggled with the canopy which did not want to fit properly. Once I had painted it up and added decals it began to look a lot better, the close up photograph looks horrendous but step back and it looks fine. I am still waiting for the plastic base and rods to show it flying overhead hoping it will not result in friendly fire. When I was a kid decals were transfers, I was quite amazed at the very detailed sheets with the 190 but there was no way I could get them on that plane.

The club this week was a game put on by Matt Dower, it was Wars of the Roses using Hail Ceasar, I was the Yorkist commander with what turned out to be a very cautious Battle under my command with an even cautiouser (?) one on my left while my right flank went head for heels at the enemy. Although we were basically pushed back to our start line with heavy casualties the Lancastrians were not much further forward than they were when the battle opened, but they were winning as we shook hands. The death knell of these rules for me is the insane rule of 6, which disorders you (why) and now also makes you take a morale test, which is completely arbitrary and can result in a whole fresh unit disappearing into the void at worst or half your army halting terrified of getting a scratch from missiles.

Where's the rest of the guys?

Bombards.

Blunder to the left, first move.

Today Matt Crump turned up braving the ferociously cold weather to play another Konigsberg Campaign game. This is the second version of the game and I don't think it has been thought through well, we have kind of given up and intend to simply play on the next couple of maps and then call it a day, or maybe not.

This game found the shoe on the other foot and the Soviets had woken up to the break out attempt so I was on the attack, there was a bit of confusion about the start lines but we sorted it out and I, as usual, was looking and feeling good about a victory for the Motherland. I brought some extra infantry and a T-34/85 in expectation of a big cat arriving for the Germans and I needed something to be able to kill it. Matt had also brought extra infantry, this time local Volksturm units of old men and young boys, and a StuG III in support.

Battlefield.

Matt played his patrol phase well and I was brought up short with my Jump Off Points deep in the village of Lindenau, not a great start, made worse by my command dice rolls. The Jerries again did well and built up a firebase along one of the road ditches which promised to kill anything dumb enough to leave the village, my useless mortar (a new one from Eureka Miniatures) did not help at all. As the German firebase built up I slowly, very slowly moved my squads along the village hiding from the MG42's. eventually I managed to get my tank on and it bravely moved forward to take a shot at the StuG. At last a Russian success as the enemy armour went up in flames, was this the turning point?

Onwards Comrades.

We were both still playing hide and seek with out infantry and Matt had moved a squad into the village and his panzerschrek to take out the T-34, it missed and I turned my mortar on it helped by some troops in a nearby building with a line of sight to the little team, the dangerous duo hit the dirt dead. I will admit these things frighten my armour. I now managed to get a triple turn and moved more infantry through the village and into close range of the German squad on the outskirts, the heavy fire succeeded in cutting these men down, enemy morale was falling.

In the ditch.

A risky advance.

Smoke grenades for cover.

Matt now desperately moved another squad out of the ditch only for the Soviets to move the T-34 into a firing position where, along with nearby infantry support, it should prove invulnerable to a possible attack by panzerfausts, that was the hope anyway. Machinegun fire from the tank now began to tell on the Germans and with their morale plummeting due to several Junior Leaders being killed or wounded Matt retreated. I did not get out without loss, my casualties were fairly high and had been until the pendulum swung my way, I had lost a Junior Leader and one of my squads had broken with another heavily pinned and close to breaking.

A weight off my mind and a turning point.

Now Boris, now.

Boys and old timers.

Another up and down Chain of Command game, I found it a struggle to get into a position in which to use my tank due to the bad lines of sight from the village, I was hoping for a double turn so that I could end the turn and allow my forces to move up without being shot to bits by Jerries on Overwatch, but I always needed my dice for other things and never seemed to have enough spare.

My ACW campaign is off to a good start and I at least am having fun watching the different forces feel their way towards objectives and the enemy. Quite a few players are finding out that with 1862 technology and the distances between troops and commanders there is usually a dearth of information. What a shame he said insincerely.

I am venturing once again into a new rules set, or at least a game with one, Stuart has bought the flavour of the month Midgard rules and wants to fight Arthurians vs Saxons next week, I volunteered my Romano-British. After that I have a game of Chain of Command against Rob during the week here in the Bunker, Italians vs French 1940.