Smolensk: Barbarossa back on track

 Quite a nice day and as usual I was ensconced in the now defunct Post Office (Lancaster Council please note) to play the fifth game in our Smolensk Campaign. I decided to go out on a limb and instead of cleaning out the central tables still in the hands of the Soviets I went for their supply line at the village of Zaborye, if I can capture the village the forward Russians will be cut off and cannot use any Resource Points.

I have yet to steel myself into choosing an armoured platoon and as the terrain here is not conducive to the use of armour I only took one Panzer II for support along with an anti-tank rifle and a motorcycle recce squad. If the motorcycles enter dismounted you get a free patrol move, I planned to move forward quickly and grab as much ground as I could, in the end I managed one extra move so I got a measly two. Matt was defending and had chosen supports to pin me down, an infantry gun, heavy machine gun and two 50mm mortars giving him three altogether.

Russians on the left, Jerries on the right.

There Hans, there!

Russian defenders wait in the half light of dawn.

Matt deployed early and soon had all his forces in the woods, most on overwatch as I struggled with Plan A, things rattled along quite quickly as I tried to decide whether it was still possible for me to force his right flank. I gave up with this idea and as I had two Chain of Command dice I conjured up a cunning plan for which I needed a double move. Russian mortar fire up till now had been mainly ineffectual apart from sending my anti-tank rifle running for cover. I had now brought all my troops on to the table and had moved my attack to the Russian left, my boys waited with bated breath to unleash hell, my little tank had again decided to play cautiously and barely moved into first gear, but it was getting closer and the 20mm autocannon would have to hit at some point.

Soviet festung.

The little tank.

My left flank, hold, hold.

And then I got it, a double move, the whistles blew and the troops leapt forward to the edge of the wood as I cancelled all the Soviet overwatch tokens before opening up. A deadly duel now transpired between both groups in their respective woodland. I was now able to bring my own mortar into action and at last the tank was making headway. The Soviet fire was not as successful as it could have been although my motorcyle troops were taking a beating and their shock was climbing. As the fight continued several Russian NCO's fell and the heavy machine gun along with the infantry gun and a squad broke. Soviet morale plummeted, as the light fell 3rd Panzer took possession of Zaborye.

The left still waiting.

The battle in the woods.

The Panzer II moves at last.

This game lasted longer than our last one, I actually made an attempt to attack the Russian position albeit carefully, I had expected a Russian tank hence the AT rifle, but nothing turned up so I wasted three valuable Resource Points on it. I think we now both have one point left until Game Seven, so the cutting of the supply line is not going to hurt for the moment the Russians in the Yartsevo Pocket. Matt had some bad luck with losing several NCO's and his shooting could have been better, my own was not much better (40 dice and no kills) but the loss of the officers and the support teams took his morale down to 1 and the sheer volume of fire ate away at the Russian units. At the end of the day we both enjoyed the game and look forward to the next one.

Before this I played two skirmish games at the club, I cannot remember the name of the first which was a Dark Age combat with me as the Saxon's and Stuart as the Vikings, I had ten men and Stuart had seven. I won the first game and lost the second, so honours were even, as you know I prefer battles with hundreds of figures so a big change for me, even Dux Britanniarum had about 40. No matter it was good of Stuart to put up with me for a night. The second was Kill Team, and yes there were gasps as the troops turned up to see me sitting there again, there were no historical games at all last night. Simon was the host this time and ran two games. I as Space Marines was up against some kind of Imperial Guard, six men vs ten, it was fast and furious although I was never quite sure I was playing it right, I am sure there is a lot of nuance in the game but you won't cotton on after just one game. Jimi's poor guard were simply targets for my superior warriors and they were massacred to the last man. Again thanks to Simon for an entertaining evening.

Saxons.

Vikings.

Kill Team.

Jimi wondering where all his men went.

However, I have learned that these games are just not for me, rightly or wrongly I see them as more games than wargames, they can be complex, for that read beyond my ken, and need an investment in time to learn and I just do not have that. Yes I know that Chain of Command and Bolt Action are skirmish games, but they seem like more and I can identify with them.

And now back to the Italian Wars, I have at last finished the French commander, King Francis I, it is unusual for me to leave the leader so long before he joins the army. I have based my version on Massimo Predonzani's painting in Helion's Vol. 3 on the battle of Pavia, why Francis flew France Ancient and not France Modern in 1525 I know not, but it looks better anyway. Also around the same time I completed a second Imperial unit of men-at-arms and an artillery piece.

 The Assault Group came through with my next phase of the Imperial army, the Spanish additions. First up is a Spanish pike block, the front ranks are done and I have mixed in some sword and buckler men to make them stick out from all my other pike blocks. Another week should see these done and I will move on to some arquebusiers then Jinette light cavalry before getting back to pikes.

I was going to do a bit on why should I bother continuing to blog, there are few other things I am streamlining as I settle into retirement, possibly mapping or the amount I am doing as well, but it will have to wait until I give it some more thought. At the very least I may be cutting down on the number of posts. I also continue to look for a decent cave in which to hide from the modern world.

Those Cowboys are Mexicans

Winter has not done with us here in the Northwest, after one beautiful day at the weekend we are back to cold, grey and rain, as I type the heaven's are just waiting to dump on us. We got to the club early last night and had to go back to the car otherwise we would have been soaked waiting for the Keeper of the Keys. It was Dead Man's Hand last night and Simon had come up with a scenario, a Stage stops at a lonely depot to change horses, the bullion has to be transferred to the building for safe keeping, meanwhile a large gang has decided to ambush the stage, but unknown to them there is a large posse at the stage depot.

Simon had forgotten his glasses and I, as usual these days had not brought the extra cards to turn my 'Mexicans' into Cowboys on the make, so although looking like Cowboys my gang was actually guilty of cultural appropriation as they pretended to be Mexicans.

The game kicked off and I had the idea of flanking the depot to come up on the side with no windows, forcing the occupants to come out and face me while hopefully putting paid to the riflemen in the corral. Andy, my fellow bad guy, simply went in slinging lead, this unhappily resulted in his bossman hitting the dirt as the posse turned on him and closed the range. At this point I should have made a run for the depot to take the heat off but I was a move too late in figuring this out and more of Andy's men went south.

For a few minutes we managed to almost even the score but it was not the turnaround we needed, I threw a stick of dynamite into the depot only to have the fuse fizzle out. With Andy contained and on the back foot the good guys turned on me and I lost several men to a rain of bullets. In the end we got out of Dodge, a clear win for the Law.

The scenario is a good idea but needs some work, there were too many defenders and not enough attackers, we also needed to use more cover as the area around the depot was fairly void of this for the attackers. I must also mention that Simon's excellent die rolling did not help things for us. Elsewhere we had Shadespire and a large underground Frostgrave game.

I have upgraded my non-mobile phone (usually at the side of the bed with no power) to a more modern mobile which is also in tune with the car, wheeeee. I sent off emails to my dozen or so contacts and to my surprise within a few minutes I got a call, it was a Glasgow number and a voice asked "Is Dougie Duggan there?" So my first call was a wrong number! Later, as we sat playing our game a phone rang at the club, something which doesn't happen often and both Julian and Ryan were shouting at me that it was my phone, by the time I understood and got to my jacket pocket it was a missed call, doesn't bode well for the future.

Steady Boys, Steady

Tuesday was a horrible night to be abroad, dark and cold but I was offered a spot in an American War of Independence Black Powder game, rebellion in my case obviously, it doesn't get called a rebellion much does it but of course that is what it was. I have tried several times to 'get into' the AWI and learn a bit more about it but it just doesn't appeal and any of the books I have read have not done it any favours either, it's the same with the Napoleonic Wars, I am sure I am wrong but there you go. I was supposed to be involved in drawing maps for an Atlas of the war but that seems to be on the back burner for now, I did manage to get some drafts done for Guilford Courthouse however I do have a map project on the French and Indian Wars in Canada in the wings. I digress.

In keeping with my Imperial leanings I was the British and I commanded two brigades while Rob led a third, opposite we had three American brigades, we both had a small cavalry unit and some artillery. There was not a lot of manoeuvre room so I stormed forward knowing that this would be a typical way for the British to conduct such a battle, my right hand brigade which contained several elite battalions fairly rushed forward while my other one dawdled along as if it had all day. My Jocks leapt forward and took out an artillery piece and found themselves surrounded by rebels but they manfully held their ground, I also managed to take one of the buildings in the town so neither we nor the Americans could be said to have gained the crossroads.

Over on my right the pride of the British army advanced and slowly but surely forced the Americans back giving them all sorts of problems trying to build up a decent defensive line. I couldn't do much in the centre due to the buildings but I did manage to pull the Jocks out just in time before they were cut down to a man. I now put all my hopes on the dawdlers, I formed attack columns and threw them in. The Americans had managed to line the fences due to the slowness of my advance but I was going to show these ragamuffins how a real army fought.

I did manage to sweep away the extreme right flank but got nowhere with my other two columns, one ran and the other was forced back, I had however the perfect opportunity to roll up the Yankee flank, at the same time Rob had almost completed the rout of the American left and had now managed to bring his grenadier battalions up to ensure victory, it was all over for the boys in blue, where is Mel Gibson when you need him.

The troops were lovely as always, some more than others, the grenadiers for instance were very imposing, as they would be of course, thankfully most of the commands did not fail their command rolls although I seem to remember Andy having a bad run with some artillery and cavalry, so the game flowed well. Elsewhere we had the new Medieval Zombicide game, a boardgame and a large X-Wing game, which by the sound of it was going down a treat. I think it might be Bolt Action next week.

I enjoy writing my blog and I take simple pleasure in watching which posts attract the most hits, this has been ruined for me once again, the last time it was a Russian robot, now it is a French one, which is not as sophisticated as the Russian as it is only looking at the same half a dozen posts every day, but enough to make it pointless for me to try and make sense out of the statistics. I was told Google Analytics is wonderful but I would need to go on a course to understand it, I can only hope that when we eventually leave the EU perhaps the French robot will stop bothering me and go somewhere else in a fit of high dudgeon.

I have finished two WWI projects over the last few days so here are a couple of examples.

50,000!

At around 2210 hrs last night I passed the 50,000 hits on the blog and went to bed a happy chappy.

I started the blog mainly because I had given up writing wargaming articles for magazines but as I enjoyed writing about wargaming the blog allowed me to continue and gave me a new outlet over which I had full control. With all the new periods I have started over the past few years and my map business becoming almost full time the blog has become part of my 'quality time' during which I can leave the cares of the day and real life behind and lose myself in my favourite, and only, hobby.

Despite myself I do enjoy watching the counter turn and I also keep an eye on my official followers and give myself a pat on the back when that counter slips over once more. Someone else happy. I have also managed to meet several of those followers and come to know several more very well.

So a big thanks to everyone who pops on whether you are a regular viewer or not.

Hello and a Build Too Far?

I notice my members counter has jumped to 38 and my visitors graph has gone off the chart, OK, not off the chart but noticeably more hits than usual, in the main I think this is due to my reporting battles on Facebook groups, TMP and those bloggers who have kindly added me to their recommended or favourite sites. I have spotted two recently who have done this and I have reciprocated on my list, if anyone else has done this and you are not on my list then drop me a line.

I am taking a tea break from mapping at the moment, the new project is a bit different than any I have done previously, I normally have at least a sketch of what is required, but this time I have to read the manuscript before drawing and hope that what I come up with is what is required, the internet is a boon for this kind of work.

I have given myself the task of getting everything ready for my first Bolt Action game in a week, I have built all the Charlie Foxtrot models and will roof them tonight, I might even get on to the half destroyed building for which I have a few ideas and am looking forward to. The buildings beg for all those little touches which just lift them to the next level, flower pots, bicycles against the walls, climbing ivy etc. but as I am on a time limit that will have to wait. At least one roof will have to wait as well as I don't think I ordered enough laser cut tiles.

I also want to paint furiously in order to add two more squads to my forces although if Simon can scrape together a force of his Soviets I might only need the Germans. I have also to put down the damn iPad of an evening and read the rules!

I am not going to the club tonight due to the workload I have given myself and I hope to have some photos by tomorrow night.

Доброе утро Россия

I'm back in the PO on what should be my day off as we still have my grandaughter and she is more at home with Granny than evil Papa who doesn't play Pony World with her. I check the blog stats the way most people check Facebook and I have noticed over the past couple of weeks that I am getting a large number of hits from Mother Russia, more so than the UK first thing. I was told that some of the hits are robots, though why a robot would want to peruse my musings is beyond me unless it is an X-Wing AAR. I had a small but significant following from Taiwan for a time but they have obviously moved on to other things. I cannot make head nor tail of the stats to be honest, some of the sections don't seem to add up but hey ho. What intrigues me the most are those out of the way countries where one poor soul has come here via Mongolia, Tunisia or Guam never to be seen again, I wonder what they were looking for in the first place.

The most popular post by far is '5,000!' which is one line basically, does that mean I rabbit on too much or do people get to it expecting something exciting and then head off to the real posts, I don't know.

Anyway onwards and upwards after a week or so with no maps I completed two one off specials over the weekend and now have two more projects, Polish armour in Europe and another on what looks like a British action in NW Europe, I have only briefly scanned the latter.

Liverpool

I have been up since 0730 hrs finishing a map project which has been a nightmare, OK, a bit dramatic but it may be cursed, I finished one map and saved it as something else thereby obliterating the original, this meant redrawing said map again without the lure of money at the end. I also saved all the maps as a different version on my new PC and thus instead of sitting comfortably in my study finishing the job I had to sit in the PO instead. Also unlike all the lovely people I have dealt with so far this time I am not so lucky.

I keep thinking it is a Sunday and want to start on another 'View'.

We decided to go out yesterday instead of sitting staring at the walls and watching several more episodes of Chicago PD, police after my own heart, but sadly fictional. We went to Liverpool, I don't have happy memories of Liverpool, I took a driving course there after I left the Navy and can regale you with a ghost story if I ever get the time, I do however enjoy Scouse humour. Anyway off we went and everything went well until we hit the outer environs, it is rough, there are nice bits and I have seen them but this way in I was hoping we would not break down. Despite the Satnav I ended up on the wrong side of the Mersey and have now been across it, or under it, twice.

Our destination was the new Waterfront area near the Liver Buildings, it was very clean but the new modern monsters grate with the beautiful old granite buildings, these were very impressive monuments to the city's past. We visited the Slavery and the Maritime museums, the first as you can imagine dumped huge amounts of guilt on Europeans, mostly deserved, but I know for a fact none of my family ever owned a slave and were more akin to slaves themselves in the 19th and 18th centuries, the Anderson fortune was made by me and the missus, and it's not much of a fortune. But it did take a welcome stand against modern slavery and opened my eyes to some of the horror perpetrated today. The Maritime part I found a bit disjointed, perhaps it could have done with a larger area, but interesting nonetheless, I especially liked some of the artefacts brought up from the 'Titanic' debris field, a lovely White Star Line wine decanter in particular.

Royal Liver Buldings.

 There are also a lot of flashy restaurants and bars in the area and I suspect it would be buzzing at night, especially on a nice summers evening. The only thing missing is a ship, a real ship you can visit and walk around as a focal point. I had heard a story that a replica of the 'CSS Alabama' was to have been built and put in one of the dry docks as it had been built at Birkenhead, but it was deemed politically incorrect and the project never left the drawing board, a shame.

CSS Alabama

 Leaving Liverpool seemed to be a lot easier than getting there, also the traffic on the motorways heading north to the Lakes for the bank holiday had gone, so it was plain sailing so to speak. You can take the boy out of the sea but ...............

So today, pack up the Western town from Saturday, paint some horses, yes I am still at it, and catch up with Hank Voight at the 21st Precinct.

10,000

I bet you thought I had missed that while living it up on the Sorrento coast, but no I didn't and I am most grateful. It was almost hitting the magic number before I left and on arrival in Vico Equense, didn't quite do my homework right and we were a ten minute train journey from Sorrento, I found that as long as I had the iPad near the mini-bar it worked and I could check. And before you even think about it I am not rich enough to pay mini-bar prices but like the Cuckoo I can move theirs out and mine in.

As you can gather I am back and normal service will resume from tomorrow, I am not going to paint tonight as the flight was delayed and with that and my still jippy tummy I am instead going to drown the bug with a nice bottle of wine and catch up with Game of Thrones while indulging myself with new potatoes and some Scottish sausages, no ham, mozzarella or tomatoes amongst that lot!

Ciao

Right, I have been desperate to show you my cataphract unit, I spent almost the last two days on it and if I had not been in the PO today I would have had them finished with only the basing to go. As it is I only have the horses to do, and by that I mean a wee bit of the head, four legs and the tail, now that's the kind of horses I like to paint. However for a change I am holding off and not jumping the gun, you will see them when I get back, probably within a couple of days.

I have been looking at suitable basing for troops fighting in Roman Syria or Mesopotamia and have taken a leaf out of someone else's book and opted for Builders Sharp Sand. I headed to Wickes for a £1.89 bag expecting about 2 kilos and found out it got me 25 kilos, what with my arm I could not actually lift it and had to get help, I think some had spilled from this particular bag so I got it for £1.30! I experimented with it last night and it forms a lovely sandy, gritty base, which, along with some fish tank gravel and desert tufts will look splendid, and the bases will not require painting or shading, result! It looks exactly like the type of terrain at Duro Europos on the Euphrates before ISIS dug it all up.

So, my apologies for having no pictures at the moment, not enough time. Also maybe Blogger HQ will have something for me when I get back so I can put decent Blog links back in, I am not the only person having that particular problem.

OK people, Musings is going dark!

Technical Hitch

Sorry guys, I have lost my Blog List, I removed a blog and then the whole thing disappeared, when I tried to put the Gadget back it will not let me add a new blog, I hit 'add to list' and nada.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

New Followers

I see I have two new followers, welcome. I had a slight suspicion that the counter wasn't working, which is why I am actually a follower of my own blog, I just wanted to test it was working, it's not my ego.

I will also take this opportunity to thank everyone who pops on to read whatever takes their fancy, your interest is very much appreciated as I approach the 10,000 milestone. I would also like to thank those who have linked me to their own terrific blogs, cheers.

Which brings me to this question, how do you find out who is the 10,000 hit, does anyone know?


Roman Army
Paints/Primer      £19.64
Basing sand         £1.30

New total         £246.82

Not another change!

If you are one of my two regulars, it's a joke, settle down, you will see that I cannot make my mind up about how this blog should look. I am going with this for the time being, I didn't like the black although it seems popular. I am also checking other blogs and trying to pick up some tips etc. to give you the will to come back.

Blog Help

OK, I have spent over an hour working on Pages, at the moment I want two, one for scenarios and the other for reviews of books and films I read or watch. I do not want the posts in either of those pages repeated on my Home page, so how do I stop that, while I am at it, how do I get rid of the white border on my pictures. You can almost picture me grating my teeth here.

You know those movies/shows where they break into someone's office or some secret establishment, find the PC turned on, pop in the password (when was the last time you did that without having to check on the secret page of A4 hidden in the second book from the left, along with all your internet banking details), and can go straight to the folder/file they want, then download it while the police/security are heading up the stairs, finishing with just enough nanoseconds left to leave and appear forty miles away. Well it's all rubbish! It has taken me almost an hour and a half to put two pages on Blogger, which work, but not the way I want.

I apologise if this has caused any inconvenience to anyone trying to read something this morning. If anyone does have a blog and can help then I would be grateful if you would enlighten me and save me going greyer than I am.

No, the white flag is up, perhaps I am wrong but the static pages are not meant to be updated or at least added to, and if they are it is far too complex for me, I even managed to wipe out the Tax Collector scenario, but that will be back soon (I hope).

Celebrations!

At some point this afternoon I reached 1,000 hits, so thank you to all who have made an effort to read my musings. If you peruse the Members section you will see that Jeremy Clarkson is my newest follower. I like Clarkson, but have no time for his sidekicks, Guinea Pig and the one who is reliving the '70's, I was there, it was no fun, like the 'swinging sixties' with all that free love, I looked, again nada. He is one of my 'go to' professional moaners along with Richard Littlejohn and Rod Liddle, the latter being my all time favourite, I don't always agree with them and don't always remember to look them up, but now and again they hit the spot.
I was going to set a game up today, but just when you think you'll never be asked to draw another map of Smolensk in 1941, along comes a request. It was like that last year with Normandy, you could drop me blindfolded from a Dakota and I would find my way to Sword beach.

Cheers!

Anyway, what has all this to do with wargaming, nothing, but I am intending to go to Vapnartak on Sunday to pick up a few things I 'need', things I will not be able to live without, all wargame related of course. The journey could be in danger if this weather keeps up however, so if it doesn't happen, then there will be a battle report.

OK, got a bit further tonight thanks to Kisha Jaggers on YouTube, this is going to take a little time and effort to eventually get the look I want and to get into a routine.

Blog Template

Well, I don't seem to be getting anywhere fast, as usual it seems less than friendly to an old guy. However, as I am hanging up the paintbrush until next week, I shall persevere and if all else fails fall back on YouTube.