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?

Club, books and stuff

Easy night at the club, X-Wing and as I had lists prepared a la Blue Peter I only had to pack up and get out the door, I did notice this week how dark it was as I got on the road, Winter is certainly on its way. Once at the club without much ado I just chose a list and set up the spaceships, it was only as we commenced the game I found I had brought a knife to a gunfight, I got these lists from the so called experts on an X-Wing Forum, OK I am not the best star pilot but how anyone can win with this nonsense escapes me, mea culpa.

Simon usually has either good luck or bad and last night his shooting and saving was the former, I did OK but nothing spectacular, my flying bricks, two B-Wings, with sieve armour were a liability as Simon's gunnery took them apart. The game was leisurely and as time approached I ran up the white flag, I had two ships left one of which was going south as soon as the enemy looked at it and I did not fancy my lone X-Wing's chances against Simon's two. I will have to learn to take the time and put some thought into the game in the future.

I caught the latest video from the excellent Little Wars yesterday and it was about women in wargaming and examining why there are so few, it also had three women talking about their experiences of wargaming. They were all positive but one did have a moan about how men had told her what to do and even moved her troops for her, female or not you just don't let that happen, I have never seen that. Now as much as I do not care for the armies of shieldmaidens and their ilk I have no objection to playing against a woman or having women in the hobby, I have actually played against a woman and been beaten to boot. Do we need to get more women in the hobby, no, do we need more diversity perhaps, no, should we be considerate and welcoming to all who show interest, overwhelmingly yes, but because their numbers are low there is nothing wrong with that. Military history and wee sojers is just not everyone's cup of tea.

I have pledged to three Kickstarters, one arrived and it was not for me, nothing wrong with the product but I sold it on. The second is due out early next year, I have been kept informed of every step and expect it to be first class and on time. Now the third, that is a different kettle of fish, even when I pledged it was overdue, but I wasn't in a hurry and decided I could wait, it is a graphic novel about Hannibal written by Nikolas Lloyd, better known as Lindybeige, a YouTuber, the artist is Christopher Steininger, I have seen his work and it is good. The project is now something like three years behind and in my humble opinion will never be complete, Lloyd cannot seem to sit down and finish the script, I get the impression the artist is also not happy, Loyd's lament that it is harder than he first imagined does not wash as he continues to produce videos for his YouTube channel and jet around the world to enhance said videos. I decided to cancel and was told by Kickstarter that I have to contact the person who set it up, I tried to contact Lindy both by email (didn't work) and left notes on his Facebook page and YouTube channel (deleted) and got nowhere. I shall now head for SmileTitans the no doubt aggrieved publishers and see how I get on there. Lindy now has a pile of money (my pledge has been withdrawn) and we backers have nothing.

I have just finished reading Max Hastings book on Operation Chastise the dam busters raid. The first part involving Barnes Wallis is fine but the book really comes alive when describing the men, warts and all in the case of 'Bomber' Harris and Guy Gibson, who flew on the operation and the raid itself, these guys were incredibly brave flying at between 50-100 feet off the deck in the dark to bomb dams in the middle of Europe. At the moment I am reading Mark Bowden's Battle of Hue 1968 set during the Vietnam war, this again is a great read about men in battle, you can almost smell the cordite and sweat, again a book about men at war and an excellent one at that. Bowden also wrote Black Hawk Down. The books do not glorify war and although exciting are at times also incredibly sad, I can only thank my lucky stars that I was not put in harm's way during my service.

The above photos are of Hue Citadel during my visit earlier this year.

X marks the spot

A bit late on the keyboard this week, been a bit lazy of an evening, well, not lazy just got back to painting and have hit on an excellent TV series which needs to be watched and not painted to, more below. X-Wing at the club this week as Simon has upgraded to Version 2, he fielded a Scum and Villainy force while I sorted out two Rebel and one Imperial force as I thought the games would be short and sharp with me on the receiving end.

The game kicked off with me flying four X-Wings and the bad guys turning up with a Y-Wing, two Headhunters and a Firespray, I kept my squadron close and their first salvoes took out the Headhunters who seemed to rashly put themselves in harms way without the support of the other two ships. A really good and unusually effective start to one of my games, I now turned on the Y-Wing and she too hit the deck or whatever passes for the deck in space. I had now lost one of my X-Wings but was still well ahead as I turned on the largest ship on the table. Simon now led me a merry dance as I at last returned to normal and found it hard to gang up on the Firespray, however I was slowly taking off shields and hull points, I lost another ship but had the Firespray on the ropes and it would only take one more shot to put it out of its misery. Simon now made a mistake and flew his ship off the table, it was a Rebel win. The game had also lasted for the whole evening, we hadn't pushed things and took it easy but all the same the time flashed by unoticed. A good night.

I mentioned I have been painting and I am getting on with the French grenadiers, I also yesterday received my 'characters' from Black Tree Design for my British Chain of Command jump off points, I couldn't wait and am painting them in tandem with the Frogs. I was quite impressed with the figures, I got some Germans a while back and though they were so so, but these really are nice, I had to wait about three weeks but that was no big deal.

I am back at my terrain this weekend, I think I have made a mistake putting some of my buildings on large bases and am going to take them off, this kills two birds with one stone, they will be easier to fit on to CoC maps for the campaigns and be easier for me to store. I have also gone for another building and some walls from Charlie Foxtrot, I only have small dry stone walls and need proper 'posh' walls as well, I had been tempted to make some but that will have to wait as I couldn't be bothered sourcing materials.

I took up Mel the Terrain Tutor's Kickstarter for his terrain book, so I hope to improve a lot of my terrain when I get it next year, it is on track and I get updates. I cannot say the same for the other Kickstarter "In Search of Hannibal" a graphic novel written, or not being written, by YouTuber Lindybeige and which is now at least three years behind with no sign of the end of the tunnel. I enjoy his channel but he needs to get his finger out and concentrate on the bloody book, reading behind the lines I also feel the graphic artist is running out of patience as well.

I mentioned the TV above, I have found two series which I can now watch, not sadly to paint by as they are so good, "The Loudest Voice" and "City on a Hill", Russell Crowe is simply brilliant in the former and Kevin Bacon is good in the latter. I also watched "The Mule" recently about a 90 year old drug runner and I read the other day of two Brits aged 75 and 72 being picked up for the same in Portugal, perhaps my working days are not over. 

Even Stephen's

Although I bemoan my lack of wargaming on reflection I do OK, I just would like to do more, I have just been through to Stewart's for some X-Wing action to balance the scales somewhat as he is happy to play historical most of the time here at Casa Anderson. Coming up along with Club nights is a War and Conquest Sunday, it was to be a weekend but I cannot commit next month to two days, so Mark Walker is making the long trip up from Leicester, a keen player considering the state of the roads. I also have Stewart coming over for Chain of Command, so not bad really. My mate Billy in Scotland has built himself the wargaming equivalent of the Wolfschanze in his garden and is open for games, I was hoping to get up this month or next but real life has interfered, however it is always an option, maybe in October.

Enough, what about the games, on arriving my grandson James was in the huff as he was not being allowed to play with Dad and Papa, so I offered him a game if he put a smile on his face, no, larger boy. Needless to say he won and went off happy with promises of more games later.

I left everything to the last minute as usual despite having time on my hands so I copied some Rebel lists from the internet, the first had a mixture of craft, a Hwk, X-Wing, Headhunter and a Y-Wing up against Scum with a Firespray and two little things Kom'rk's I think. Anyway before we go any further I am usually just target practice for Stewart as I am not a great or good player at this, this was going to show in the game as the build I had 'stolen' was far too complicated for my skills, it did look good but needed an above average player to pull it off, not me. The game lasted a lot longer than I thought and there came a point where if I had made a better decision and not rolled such lousy dice I may have went on to win, but it was not to be and although I cut the enemy forces down to two ships my four went south eventually in quick succession.

I think this is where I screwed up in the first game.

That is a Ukrainian Air Force colour scheme on the Hwk.

 

In the second game I took a force more suited to my talents and not overly complex, two B-Wings, the Hwk and an X-Wing, I was against the Empire this time with two Defenders and an Interceptor. Again it was not a quick game and Stewart started off well but this time my dice were a lot better and I saved quite a few shots, there was also a lot of ships in a small space so at times some could not get a shot off, this was better for me than the bad guys. I tried to pull my B-Wings out to medium range in order to use their laser cannons but was followed closely by the Defenders. By sheer accident I had managed to get all my ships with firing arcs on the Defenders and my dice eventually came through, both ships went up in bright explosions, I think both Stewart and I were a bit stunned, he got his last shots off  with the Interceptor which failed to bring down the badly damaged X-Wing so we called it a day, one each, result!

It was 1700 hrs so we popped along to the pub for the Recrimination Phase before I motored home, I had to have a shandy as they had no zero beer, every big brewer now has zero beer, my favourite at the moment being Peroni but still some pubs don't get it. I must admit I felt like throwing caution to the wind and having several pints of ale just like the old days but no, besides I was driving.

So, as I sit here on this beautiful day what's next, nothing today, a walk along the prom in Morecambe to take in the sea breeze, nothing tomorrow either as you cannot go anywhere in the Lake District during a holiday unless you want to spend the day in traffic jams, looking for parking, or jostling through crowds in the heat. So getting some SYW troops ready for priming and sinking some cool Peroni's are the order of the day.

What happened there?

Stewart turned up on Saturday morning for our planned wargame weekend, first up was several games of X-Wing then a War and Conquest game to refresh the rules for April (see below). X-Wing is undoubtedly Stewart's game and I like to think WAC is mine, pride cometh before a fall.

I ran four X-Wings in the first game as I had had success with this at the club and was quietly confidentish, I completely mucked things up and on one turn I did not even get a shot off, I was then taught how to really play the game, first blood to Stewart. In the second game I took two B-Wings, these fly like bricks, an X-Wing and an A-Wing, Stewart had the Hounds Tooth a big ugly monster of a ship, but one which never seems to have much success, especially at the club, another two ships escorted the beast. I got everything right this time and got a very good win destroying all the enemy, my first ever win against Stewart, honours even. For our final bash we both had Imperials and both had two Tie Defenders along with one more ship, I had an Aggressor and Stewart took an Interceptor. I was out of my depth and had a bit of bad luck, I thought I would get rid of the Interceptor first and got it down to three hull points, I hit it nine times more and not one shot got through! I quickly lost the plot and Stewart won 2/1, but I was happy with that I expected it to be 3/0.

Sunday dawned and it was Saxon Heptarchy vs Carolingians, I took two elite Gedriht units, a group of Geoguth and one of Ceorls, I also took some cavalry as a reserve, then I took the Franks, yes, those Franks, but this time I gave them more men so that they would always have the chance of gaining the Warband bonus, I also gave them their own general and heavy throwing weapons, surely they would not let me down with all this lavished on them? The Carolingians had two elite units, some average troops, a large unit of cavalry and some unreliable types. We both had skirmishers, I had three units and Stewart had two.

Stewart had to deploy first and it was a typical battle line, I formed the same opposite, my intention was to break the Carolingian right and roll up the line while holding my own right back until they were forced into combat. Stewart moved his cavalry into skirmish and headed for the opposite flank, I was happy with this and moved my slingers behind the line to meet them, my right could be exposed by the cavalry. However I saw an excellent opportunity to ride down the enemy skirmishers opposite my cavalry, I covered them with my archers as they moved forward, before I could charge Stewart caught me out by charging the archers, a move which was unexpected and routed them, this meant the cavalry were now targets and they took enough casualties to rout, elsewhere that turn I had another unit of archers run, three surprising routs in one turn, not good.

The sun shines on the Carolingians.

The confident Saxons

 

Still looking good.

The pendulum just about to swing.

I now threw the Franks forward and sure enough my plan worked and they beat their foes and swept them away, Stewart had come off his hill so my right was now engaged as well, I was winning these combats, the Carolingian cavalry now turned and came back. I rallied my cavalry and set them towards the enemy, Stewart looked crestfallen. Another Carolingian unit ran and my young Geoguth held their opponents to a draw, it looked like it was all over. I then made a stupid move with the Franks, counting on them moving an elite unit, which they almost did, but in the round after my forces took a severe beating, so bad the tide turned and they failed to recover, as time passed more and more Saxons fled to the rear. It was my turn to look downhearted. Stewart had grabbed a splendid victory from the jaws of defeat, even my King was captured, a black day for the Heptarchy. When will I ever learn about those damn Franks, although they could say I have to shoulder most of the blame for mucking up their move, I threw away a good opportunity there.

With most of the army running I surrender my sword.

So a good two days fighting and Stewart grabbing the laurels and no doubt driving home reliving his glory. I had even used my new Saxon dice, I was never happy with the orange ones and they just felt wrong, these svelte blue and black dice are fine despite my loss.

If you are a regular here you will know I went to a couple of War and Conquest events twice a year for a time, I like the game that much, sadly these events have not continued, for several reasons which I won't bore you with, so I decided to hold my own. I could easily fit four tables in to my Post Office but decided to go with three for a trial, this due to circumstances beyond my control has dwindled to two, no matter it is going ahead, two games on Saturday and one on Sunday.

I have been eBaying with some success recently and intend to do more once I return from holiday as decided to clear out stuff I never play with, most of my ACW ships have now gone and I have amassed enough for another couple of models for Bolt Action.

Da, da, da, dadada.

Another dark and dingy night for Club Night, although I notice the days getting that bit longer, snow on the hills has gone but it is cold.

Alex who was new to X-Wing asked me for a game this week, as he also flies Imperials I thought I would take the Rebels for a change, they don't get out of the box very often. I wanted to keep it simple so looked around online for some inspiration and decided to go with four named X-Wing pilots, nothing fancy but the X-Wing is a pretty decent all round fighter as you would expect.

The Empire turned up with three Tie Interceptors led by Soontir Fel, apparently he is an Ace pilot, I don't know that much about the Star Wars universe but the card is a good one. I started off with an advance and a turn to meet the enemy, I survived the salvoes which came at me and started to return fire, I had all my ships target lock one Interceptor and ganged up on him, at the end of that turn he was space dust. The rest of the game turned into the same routine, my ships kept together and the sheer volume of fire took care of the rest, a win for the Rebels and one of my few solo game wins. Alex's die rolling was superb in attack but rather useless in defence, my own were pretty good on both counts and the target lock ability was deadly to the Imperials.

Repainted X-Wings.

 

We had time to play a second game, the line up was the same and I started off the same way as game one, it took slightly longer this time but I still managed to concentrate on one Interceptor and put him away. Then it all went wrong, I don't know what happened but I screwed up my movement something terrible, some of the manoeuvres when turned over didn't make sense and I suffered for it, I lost one X-Wing and found it hard to concentrate fire on one ship. As time ran out I lost a second ship and my other two were not going to get close enough to do any damage to the enemy, which was a shame as both of them only had one hull point left.

A good run out for me and two enjoyable games, the four X-Wing combo was very good, I do think the Imperials lack a decent ship to combat the X-Wing, I know people say that the Imperial ships are more manoeuvrable and that they can have the numbers, but I don't buy that. Besides you have to be a very good player to keep control of say six Tie Fighters, and that is not me.

A busy night at the club, a WWII Battlegroup game, a Dark Age/Fantasy skirmish, Frostgrave and Roots (murder and mayhem with furry creatures), almost a full house. Napoleonic next week, Black Powder.

Oh dear, Rubicon have just announced a JagdPanther turning up in a week or so, I suddenly realise I 'need' one.