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?