German armoured cars 3 - BF Sdkfz 231

Say what you like about Battlefront (and I often say a fair bit, especially when looking at the price tag or trying to stick them together) some of their models are really nice, and this Sdkfz 231 is one of them. I wanted something for the heavy platoon of my early war armoured car company, and this just the ticket. I was particularly pleased to pick this up cheap from Caliver, rather than paying the usual eye watering BF price.

A lovely crisp model which sits really well and has lots of sharp edges and raised detail. The commander is supplied with a moulded on open hatch (or there is a closed hatch too).

The wheel assemblies are separate castings, as is the gun/MG assembly for the front of the turret. I had to trim the latter down to make it fit but the wheels went on without any problems. As usual I had to hold everything together with blu tak while the superglue dried.

Rear view, the hatch details is very nice. The model was suplied with the wierd snow plough thing to go on the front, but I couldn't see any human way to fix it without pinning, so I didn't bother to put it on. There are plenty of photos showing them without.

It pretty much painted itself, just a heavy drybrush of panzer grey and a light overall dust finish. I went for fairly minimal markings, but added some numbers so it could stand in as a command vehicle. I'd originally planned to put them on the turret, but I didn't fancy putting them on over the vision ports. At some point I'll do the numberplate, but that is good enough for now.

German armoured cars 2 - QRF Sdkfz 222

As we are doing armoured cars (see last week), these are my venerable QRF 15mm Sdkfz 222s. Purchased some considerable time ago.

I got two. Well you have to really don't you.

These are decent castings, albeit perhaps a bit dated now. Not sure if the moulds for these have been redone. You just need to stick the wheels on and job done.

These versions have the wierd trangular hubcap things moulded on.

Lots of angular surfaces pick up the drybrushing well.

So there you have it, nothing spectacular but good solid models and I've actually used these two a fair bit over the years. I just did them plain panzer grey with minimal markings and a lighter grey highlight with a very pale tan 'dust' finish. If I had one criticism, it would be that the turrets are a bit flat, but otherwise they look the part.

German armoured cars 1 - Forged in Battle Sdkfz 222

Some months ago, I had a donation to my 15mm forces from Tim, some Forged in Battle Sdkfz 222s. I've never had any FiB stuff before, had a look at them at shows a few times, but they never really seemed to have anything which I didn't already have in quantity anyway and all their stuff seems to be in multi-pack blisters.

Anyway, I had been thinking about a certain lack of armoured cars so these came along at a timely moment. Having left them to stew for a suitable interval (umm, it may be well over a year), I set to work.

These chaps came in a pack of three. Nice crisp resin mouldings with metal turrets. The spare wheels are moulded with covers on, which provides a bit of contrast, particularly on the grey one.

A slightly closer look at the side.  The shovel stands out very well and the jerry cans are moulded on. The only fiddly thing was seperate metal guns to stick into the turrets, which I had to hold on with Blu Tak while they dried.

Rear view. The turret crew come moulded in, which is a nice touch. One them them is wearing goggles, you can see the strap on his helmet. One thing evident in this picture are the pre-moulded bases, which unfortunately mean the models end up standing on little rocky hills. I could have just used those, but I prefer to use my own base sizes. Just something I'll have to live with.

I did one in Panzer Grey to go with my QRF Sdkfz 221s. The other two are done in the same scheme as my Sdkfz 2341/1s so they can join my late war panzer recce battalion. My early war panzer recce Bn is still short of Sdkfz 231s, but more on that anon. Didn't have any problems with painting them, the resin didn't seem to be greasy so I just painted right over it (I wonder if it isn't resin but that plasticised plaster the Timecast terrain is made from? the texture seemed very similar).

So there we go. These are nice little models which I'd recommend to anyone, the only thing to watch out for are the pre-moulded bases. If you want bulk purchases, they are relatively inexpensive, certainly compared to BF, and I have a project in mind where their truck packs may come in quite handy.

A trip to the British Museum

I recently had a trip to London, and in between appointments, managed to squeeze in a couple of hours in the British Museum. I headed for the Roman, Greek and Medieval galleries, and I'd forgotten quite how amazing a lot of the exhibits really are. I've also managed to forget who some of the assembled Roman nobility below are, but hey ho.

This is a magnificent bust of Augustus (I think!).

Livia and Tiberius. She looks much more like her incarnation in the more recent 'Rome' TV series here than the interpretation in I, Claudius.

Marcus Aurelius. Who doesn't look anything like Richard Harris in 'Gladiator' at all. Love the thick curly hair and beard. He'd be very at home in Hoxton.

Medieval tablets telling the story of Tristran and Isolde.

St George, Hurrah!

The Sutton Hoo trove. Just amazing.

Sadly my rather dodgy photos don't do the exhibitions justice, but I was very glad I'd decided to go to the British Museum, rather than hauling down to Lambeth to look at the revamped Imperial War Museum. Save that for another day.

Triples 2016

Triples has come around once more, albeit with a return to its earlier March date. I went along to help with the setup, and to run the Wargames Developments Display Team (north) game.

The usual mass of punters chatting and shopping. The large hall gives plenty of space to move around anyway.

Setting up on Friday. This such an easy venue to set up compared to the Octagon. No more lugging piles of tables up tiny lifts.

The game in full flow. This years game was Cursus Honorum, a role playing game of politics in the Roman Republic (and reported earlier on this blog).

John resplendant in his wreath.

Overall the Saturday was a reasonable effort, we had a good number of takers to play the game and I managed to pick up most of the stuff on my shopping list including some amazing bargains from the Bring and Buy and a (very) heavily discounted PSC US Tank Company box which saved me about 40 quid.

Overall the show seemed quieter than previous years, and some regular traders were missing. Although March used to be the traditional month for Triples, moving back to it from May seems to have caught some people unawares and there are also three other shows in March. I gather Sunday was even quieter (I didn't attend as I was running), so perhaps a bit of thinking to do for the future.

Fleurus, 1622

After the success of Edgehill, I wanted to give the Neil Thomas Pike and Shot rules another go in a different period, this time the Thirty Years War. Although I am fairly up on Gustavus Adolphus and the Swedes, the workings of the earlier Imperial and Protestant armies have always been a bit of mystery to me, so this was always going to be a bit of an experiment.

I wanted to do something from the early period before everyone had discovered the primacy of firepower so I dug around a bit on wikipedia and came with the Battle of Fleurus in 1622. An army of Protestant mercenaries (which included the Bishop of Halberstadt) in the hire of the Dutch and en route to raise the Spanish siege of Bergen-op-Zoom. The battle was fought near Fleurus, and also quite near to Quatre Bras and Ligny, so an exciting part of the world.

Eager defenders of the faith rolled up, John and Jerry took the wicked Spanish and Tim G took the wicked Protestants. As usual played with my 2mm stuff on a few hastily assembled carpet tiles. This was the first outing for my big pike blocks and Tercio stands some of which are dimly visible in the photos. (Many thanks to Tim for the photos, the SD card in my phone died and I lost all mine).

General layout of the battlefield. Protestants nearest the camera. Cordobas Spanish deployed with their flanks resting on the woods. I had to juggle the armies a bit to fit in with the historical strengths. The eight ad-hoc disorganised Protestant infantry battalions became two huge levy infantry regiments, whilst their excellent cavalry became three good quality horse units, one of which was led by the Bishop. The Spanish were a real dogs dinner and ended up with two elements of poor horse and three huge Esquadrons, one of which (incorporating the veteran Tercio of Naples) was rated as elite.

After a prolonged cannonade the Protestants moved forward and engaged in a musketry duel. This bit was quite good fun as the big infantry units packed a lot of firepower and very soon hits were flying all over the place. Sadly the Protestant cavalry discovered quite quickly that the big regiments were extremely dangerous to horsemen.

Eventually it came to push of pike and things went a bit pear shaped. A feature of the Neil Thomas rules in all periods is that units which are 'better' in close combat than their opponents get multiple dice per base, and as all the bases fight, regardless of unit depth, any advantages are compounded. The veteran Spaniards were considerably 'better' than their opponents, and ended up throwing 24 dice per regiment vs 12 for the poor old Protestants, which felt a  bit clumsy. The same thing happens in the Ancients set when Romans are fighting barbarians, it just feels a bit overpowered, particularly as the rules are aimed at armies of equal size It became fairly obvious at this point that the Protestants were going to get massacred, so we called it a day.

The problem is probably fixable. I could vary the forces sizes (historically the Protestants outnumbered the Spanish almost 2:1 but still lost!) and also have a look at how mixed units and combat advantages translate into close combat dice, possibly varying the to-hit rolls instead, but I don't want to break the basic system.

Along with thinking about rules modifications, I also had a look around at some other rules, particularly 'Marston Less' and the English Civil War Command and Colours variant, both of which would be easy to adapt to the Thirty Years War.. So, we'll head back to the killing fields of central Europe at some point, but I need to do a bit more tinkering around first.

Night Withdrawal

As a gentle game requiring little thought before Triples, and put on another scenario from my ongoing Memoir 44 Normandy campaign, this time a follow up battle during the 'Operation Charnwood' mini-campaign.

The previoua battle had featured a massive RAF bombing attack  followed up by a frontal assault on Caen which left the Canadians with a very bloody nose at the hands of 12th SS Panzer Division. IN thia follow up engagement, the Germans have decided that enough is enough and are planning on falling back over the Orne as night falls. After their bloody repulse earlier in the day, the Canadians are pushing cautiously into Caen, and a complication for both sides is that night is approaching, after which point the battlefield will be plunged into darkness!

Graham and Tim C took the plucky Canadians, and in a role reversal largely based on where they happened to sit down, Jerry and John took the wicked Germans. Both sides were relatively fortunate in their pre-battle attrition rolls and managed to scatter some damage across their opponents, and the Canadians had the added bonus of some extra armoured reserves which beefed one of their tank units up to 'elite' status. Very scary!

As ever, played with 15mm stuff on my Hexon terrain and using my lightly modified 'Memoir 45' variant.

The battlefield from west, Canadians to the left, Germans to the right, and dimly visible on the far right, the vital Orne bridge. Various built up areas of Caen in between.

The Allies did a pretty good job of keeping their infantry and tanks together this time, but the Germans managed to get some of their units dug in. Here an assault goes in against some Germans dug in the open in the centre (they'd earlier been pushed out of the houses).

Over on the left the Shermans were closely supported by infantry. The mighty elite tank battalion being indicated by the big red badge. In this photo the Luftwaffe has made a surprising and very unwelcome appearance. Luckily for the Allies, the crew of the elderly Stuka were equally surprised to be in the air and only managed to inflict a single hit on the very juicy target array before them.

The Allies finally managed to push through in the centre, while the left pushed up having destroyed the German armoured counterattack. By now it was fairly honours even loss wise, but suddenly there seemed to be very few Germans around and as it was night time, all combat was being resolved by close assault. Very nasty!

With both sides one flag away from victory, the Germans launched an infantry counterattack which was repulsed, and over on the left the Allies went for broke with two tank battalions attacking the Germans in the woods and infantry tackling the dug in anti-tank guns. Sadly the tank attack went badly wrong, both tanks failed to inflict lethal damage on the infantry, and in their riposte the infantry managed to score two hits on the already damaged tank unit, finishing it off and winning the game.

As ever with Memoir 45, a detailed military simulation? probably not. But a fun game? yes. I thought this went very well, with both sides putting a considerable amount of thought into their moves and actions, and dare I say it, actually having some sort of plan. The fact it went down to the wire was a testament to both sides  tenacity.

One variation I tried this time was issuing extra command cards in the intial hand (six instead of four)