Whoo, whoo

 Another visit to Matt's Dungeon, always a pleasure, this time I was greeted by his new project, a model railway which trundled around almost on the ceiling, the ridiculously small space hosted workmen, bridges, sheep pens and a station! As ever with Matt, all done to perfection, stunning, you have to see it to appreciate the work.

We were doing a 'Back of Beyond' game where I was the British supported by an armoured car and howitzer along with Indian troops and Afghan mercenaries whose loyalty may be suspect. The Russians also had a number of tribesmen, a howitzer and a lovely model Tachanka machine gun wagon, I was quite taken away with this piece, Warbases sell them. There were three objectives, on my left a railway wagon with an armoured car on it, a road junction in the centre and on my right another railway wagon with fuel drums. I decided off the bat to fight for the armoured car and sent British and Afghans towards it, I wasn't quite sure whether to just concentrate on the junction or try and get that and the fuel dump, in the end I put my howitzer and MMG opposite the fuel dump with the hope of making it costly for the Russians to take while keeping a squad in the area ready to pounce if the opportunity arose. Everything else was going for the junction.

Somewhere in the back of beyond.

Beautiful terrain.

I had some Bengal Lancers and was at a loss how to use cavalry in a Bolt Action setting so simply threw them up the road at the Tachanka and wiped it out, this left me able to push some Indians and British up to take the centre where they stayed put. The cavalry then wiped out some Russian affiliated Afghans before falling to regular Soviet rifle fire, but they had done spendidly and assured that in order to get the centre back the Russians would have to take some hard decisions. The Soviet gun was pretty useless as was my own, the medium machine guns of both sides also turned out to be bad shots. Over on my left I had made it to the wagon with the armoured car and set up a nice defence line as a Soviet horde appeared from over the hill, OK, two squads. I lost quite a few men from one British squad and pulled the survivors back into cover, I had to do the same with one of my Afghan squads, this rabble now decided they were on the wrong side and shot into the backs of my stalwart Tommies. These cutthroats were then put to the bayonet and my boys went back to their defences.

My left flank advances.

I take the centre.

The lancers arrive.

Reds get surprised.

 Some desperate hand to hand combat took place on my left but the line held, the Soviets were now running out of men along with their opportunities to retake the junction, they did however ignore my ineffectual howitzer and machine gun to take the fuel dump a second squad made a desperate run at the junction into my waiting defenders only to be gunned down. As the clock ticked down and we got one last move I could rely on keeping the centre but the Soviets could grab the flank objectives, sadly for Matt his right hand squad kept refusing to move and therefore I was now two objectives up, that spare squad I mentioned above now moved to contest the fuel dump, the British had won.

My armoured car secures the centre objective.

Very impressed with this model.

 I have said it before but it is a real joy to play in the Dungeon on one of Matt's lovely set ups, just what wargaming is all about for me. Matt is also far more lenient with the rules than many wargamers and concentrates on commonsense and playability, another plus for the Dungeon.

I got my new metallic paint box from Army Painter, a nice deal from Wayland Games with free postage. First off there were a couple which as an historical wargamer I will not use nice as they were, Red Copper, Rough Iron and True Copper, I gave the first two away. The paints flow better than Vallejo metals which can be like porridge, especially Gunmetal, they also cover easily, well they do on a white primer which I nearly always use. The Weapon Bronze is just that and has a reddish tint to it, it is not a shiny bronze. I decided to use the Greedy Gold for my bronzed armour which is more akin to artwork and reenactor bronze armour, I got one more bottle just in case and got Tainted Gold, I might use this now and again but it is not shiny. Bright Gold is beautiful and bright, perfect for decorated armour on officers etc. Cobalt Metal is blueish and good for tinting mail, I will use this but sparingly, Gun Metal is nice, better than Vallejo. Plate Mail is fine and does what it says on the tin or bottle in this case. Shining Silver was a let down, Vallejo and GW are much better. So I didn't do too well out of the deal after all, the only colours I really like are Greedy and Bright Gold.

I have almost completed the first twelve figures for I Minerva and moved on the second batch, I have an idea the vexillation will be complete at the weekend. I have to once again thank Phil Robinson for sending me more freebies in the shape of some shield transfers.

Work in progress.

And so to last night, Chain of Command with Simon, somewhere in the Don Basin as 6th Army strikes for Stalingrad. I chose a Panzergrenadier platoon and went heavy with armoured support, a Pz III, Pz II and a 250/1 halftrack. Simon chose a Soviet infantry platoon, two flamethrowers and two minefields. I was attacking a village and Simon was defending, I was determined to actually attack rather than sit back as you can do in CoC and simply out shoot the enemy. 

My objective.

Taxi!

Workhorse but getting old in '42.

I did however set up two squads to cover the advance and sent another in the halftrack along my right flank, I pushed the armour as fast as I could as I wanted this to lead my attack but it took time and I always seemed to need the command dice for something else. Simon tried an advance and got shot up then withdrew to cover, this gave me time to get the armour a bit further on. I then found an opportunity to run the halftrack up and dismount the passengers to assault the survivors of a shot up squad on the right. This was successful and put the Soviets on the back foot while their morale was dropping due to losses As the German armour began to pick on the remaining squads we called it a day, with only one flamethrower left now the Reds had little chance of holding off the German panzers.

Pz III.

The armour in support.

 Sadly the Russians were outclassed from the start and Simon suffered from a few bad die rolls while I for a change was on fire, especially when wounding and killing Soviet NCO's. The only Russian vehicle they could have had was an SU-76 due to the time period and support points and this might have made a difference but who knows.

I have bought the latest issue of 'On Bloody Ground' dealing with Sub-Roman Britain, written by my good friend Dave Toone and his son Dan, the series draws on their experiences with WAB and War and Conquest but with their own unique take on fighting large battles, you won't get away with doing Hastings on a two foot tile with 25 figures. As you know I am a WAC fan but as Hail Caesar tightens its grip on the club and no one seems eager to enjoy WAC perhaps I can persuade someone to take an interest in OBG. Dave missed his vocation as a double glazing salesman as he persuaded me to take a look with his unbounded enthusiasm, also I liked his idea of holding weekend meetings, something I still miss with WAC and even being a newbie I would try and take part. 

Postie on time for a change.

Parthian Shot: The last time we celebrated the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar I remember the lunacy of two model fleets being Red and Blue, not British and French seemingly in an effort not to affect the Gallic sense of pride but more to indulge the morons in charge of the celebrations. Can you remember 'Nelson' wearing his life jacket in the dinghy! Although these days perhaps the kids do think the fleets were Red and Blue. The same thing now seems to have happened with the naming of the latest nuclear submarine, HMS Agincourt will now be HMS Achilles, I remember the Battle class destroyer HMS Agincourt as I rowed past her at her moorings in Pompey harbour waiting for the knackers yard. I have no problem with Achilles as it is a proud name to carry, but I do find the nonsense that it will upset the Frenchies a bit of a storm in a teacup.

Rebels and Patriots

Fairly quiet at the club last night, one RPG game, one Age of Sigmar and Rebels and Patriots run by Stuart, I volunteered for the latter, it has been played a couple of times at the club but I was still in Saga mode then, I have since escaped from that.

The game was a continuation of a campaign I think or a linked series of games, loosely involving the same characters if not players, this gives a kind of narrative to the players efforts and seems to be de rigueur these days with skirmish games, either this or a whole series of events triggered by dice rolls. Did I like it, it was fine, I can only compare it to Muskets and Tomahawks which I really enjoy. It is very easy to play, all of us picked up the mechanics within a turn or so, when shooting you have to score so many hits to kill, for instance if your target is in open ground every two hits kills one man, in cover every three. Like M&T shooting and combat can be brutal and deadly, shooting is to me strange, you can fire through woods, visibility seems to count for naught, there are no saves which I have gotten used to, five dead is five dead and hence this level of lethality tends to put your unit out of action very quickly. You also have to roll to activate each unit, a six with two D6 is required, it may not seem too hard but see below. One thing which struck me as strange is that line and militia infantry have a range of 18" while elites, like Grenadiers get 12", Stuart opined that this was to force players to use these elites in hand to hand combat rather than a firefight, nonetheless it seems daft to me. A very simple, quick game, with almost no learning curve and perfect perhaps for a club night, but without the bells and whistles of the 'campaign' and events perhaps too simple.

What about the game, well I was commanding two Provincial, one Light and one Highland (elite) battalions these were all twelve men strong. The figures used were as usual very nice and a pleasure to play with and observe. Simon had a motley crew on my right with some regulars and Indians along with six Rangers. We all had different objectives, mine was simply to clear the French from the area. No sooner had my men set off, well some of them, than the Jocks decided they did not like their officer of the moment and shot him in the back thus depriving me of his command incentive, this played havoc with my plan of advancing and shooting down Rob's Frenchies. I then fell foul of the range mechanic and my Highlanders began to be shot down without being able to reply, it would also be suicide to advance them so I was left with no alternative but to withdraw them.

Every player rolls a die at the start of the turn and the highest goes first, it then follows clockwise, although this was to my advantage initially I could not profit from it as turn after turn my units refused to do anything while all the time under a galling fire from the enemy. Simon meanwhile had disturbed a Grizzly with his Rangers and the beast killed most of the unit, he also ran into some quicksand later, Rob was set upon by a swarm of lethal wasps and lost a man to their stings. The events are not all bad and Simon got at least one extra unit. Meanwhile I began to lose units without inflicting any damage, I lost over half my force and the rest decided to go home. Although Simon had managed to remove Ian's men from the table he now had to contend with Rob's almost complete brigade, it was over.

As a bit of fun it played well enough, but as a serious wargame no, for me it joins a long list of perfectly playable games based on history, I know M&T is not serious either but it feels better to me. You will notice I am trying to shrug off my deplorable die luck, Chain of Command on Thursday, a real test for my Karma.

I have a pile of bits and pieces primed and might start them today, I am in no particular hurry at the moment with anything having just finished another map project, I do have a toy cat to paint red today, long story. I admit it is warm but looking out the window it is damp, misty and grey, what a combination.