Words!

Or at least, things of a word-like nature. . . 

So, I'm well aware that it has been what experts may call "a while" since I've updated my blog. The past ten or so months have been kid of turbulent and busy due to massive changes at work, so I've not had a lot of time to sit down and paint stuff and not had much cause to update anything here. Somewhat ironically, though, I have started attending my local gaming club on a semi regular basis so i'm at least getting to play games! 

So, just what the hell have I been up to? 

Firstly, I did manage to get the Panthers finished.



As well as some Konigstigers.



And an Sdkf 234 armoured car



I've actually got two 234s finished, and I'll get more/better pictures of them in the near future. And yes, its on a base. Shock! 

In other news, I recently took part in a Total War game at our local club's annual charity wargaming day, affectionately known as the G3 Annual Spencer Warner Memorial Gaming Day (or GGGASWMGD). I've not got round to doing a write-up, as uploading pictures is proving to be a nightmare, but Mark over at Breakthrough has put a nice wee article about it here. For now, you;ll have to make to with a single photo taken somewhere round turn 5 or 6.



While it was nice to get the toys out and have an all day game, I found that the total-war aspect of trying to capture a big action wasn't too satisfying in its scope as a lot of the killing seemed to be done by specialist units and funky toys rather than plain old line troops. While I have no problem with FoW or Team Yankee, they're quite restrictive in being company level games with no real restriction (other than points) on wonder units that many real world commanders wouldn't have had access to, and this is starting to become a little boring. I've been toying with branching out for a while now, and last week I finally took the plunge and bought another set of wargaming rules.

The rules I opted for were Rapid Fire, a set I stumbled across when I looking for Cold War inspiration on the excellent Cold War Gamer blog. As the 2nd edition is out of print, I took the plunge and spend 9 whole US dollars (or the soul of my firstborn at our post-Brexit exchange rate) on a pdf copy. I've had flick through them and I'm very impressed, they seem to be simple and easy to follow, and although written with 20mm and WW2 in mind they look adaptable to various periods and scales. The key thing for me, though, is that they're regiment/brigade level rules where your individual models represent whole platoons worth of assets. This could get exciting! 

Cheery bye for now folks, if you're unlucky you may even get another update this year. . . 

Kampfgruppe Würstideaever

Good morning ladies and gents,


I managed, somehow and against all the odds, to not only get everything finished but to get it all finished ahead of schedule. I know, I'm just as surprised as you are. . .


The final list for yesterday read as a StüG for my CiC, a platoon of 3 StüGs, a platoon of 2 Jagdpanthers and another single Jagdpanther, a trained grenadier platoon with a Panzerschrek and a Panzerfaust, a trained 4 gun leFH18 battery, a security platoon and a Flak 36 battery. As predicted, this motley collection of units did not function in a cohesive manner, letting me down left, right and centre. Thought I wooden spooned it, and more on this later, I must say I had an absolute blast considering only 5 people showed up in, including the organiser, and I was pleased to play as many games in a weekend than I played in the whole of last year. I also won best axis by default as I was the only person who brought bad guys with them. Suffice to say I'll be back, but hopefully by then I'll have the luxury of being able to pick and chose what I'm taking rather than having to throw a Kampfgruppe together at the last minute.
































On the day we played three games, and I ended up playing Surrounded as the attacker against Gav's Market Garden US paratroopers, Dust Up as the attacked against Mark's Comet spam list and Hold the Line as the Defender against Michael's Remagen US Armoured.


My first game ended in a 2-5 loss on turn 5 due to some poor deployment on my part and some sneaky flank shots on Gav's leaving me with nothing to deal with the two Shermans sitting on the objective I was going after. The second game ended as a 1-6 loss with a humiliating turn 1 at the double move from Mark's Comets and some terrible deployment from me, not putting anything on the exposed objective he could quite clearly snag. Mark being a gentleman, however, we played on for the learning experience but I was hampered by bad reserve rolls and worse reserve placement. Lessons learned, I went into the final game and still lost 2-5 by turn 4, though mainly because half my reserves didn't turn up and those that did had to wait until turn three at the earliest; t'was a close run and brutal thing, with the game coming down to a missed artillery strike on a recon platoon near the objective and a very successful motivation test for the single Stuart atop the objective not to run away. I can, however, take solace in the fact that I wiped out over half of Michael's army for the loss of a single Grenadier platoon, so thats something.


Having got my Market Garden Germans to the stage where I can field a fully painted 1750 points list, the next thing I want to finish up is some suitable terrain for them to play over. I have started building a fair few bits, hedges and buildings mainly, and I intend to add some roads, hills, walls, fences, trees and a windmill to the mix. More importantly, I want to get the stuff fully painted up so I can start taking pictures of my games. I don't doubt I'll get bored of this, or at least distracted, but hopefully by that point the stuff I ordered during the Tanksgiving sale will have been delivered so I can make a proper start on Jochen Peiper's Kampfgruppe War Criminals.

Take care for now, folks.

A pack of Panzers

Greetings readers,

Once again my ability to plan has been surpassed by my inability to follow a plan, as I've discovered I only have a tiny drizzle of Typhus Corrosion left in the pot. This has killed any sort of painted mud based activities, such as defences and infantry basing, so I broke out the PSC Panzer IVs and had at it.

Having perused the order of battle for the Normandy campaign I settled on the 9th Panzer division for my armoured elements, and I went for these guys as I figured not many other people would. They didn't have the prestige of the Panzer Lehr, the experience of the 2nd or the funky toys of the 21st, but the 9th were still a capable and well equipped formation before the invasion. 

Having researched a little further, I discovered that these guys were an extremely fresh formation, having spent about six months rebuilding outside Paris having been shattered on the eastern front. This meant that they would have had a lot of brand new equipment mixed in with some older kit that they'd "liberated" from their R&R area. With this in mind, I wanted a slightly unusual colour scheme that hinted at some serious time being taken in unifying the division's paint jobs. A quick internet search turned up this picture. . .



A suitably inspiring colour scheme which I've modified a little, resulting in these. . .



The start of first platoon, second company, 9th Panzerregiment.

Close ups. . .



















Next up will be some half tracks of some description. 

Thanks for looking, folks.

Nesting instinct

Thanks mate, you know where I am if you need my services :P

Quick update here, been pottering away on a few things at once and I have some finished items to show for it! 


8cm mortar nests.


HMG nests


HMG pillbox bunker


Test minefield (signs are still to be detailed)

As you can see, my fortifications are coming along nicely and next up to the painting table will be a few trench lines as they should be very quick and easy to bash out.

I've also realised that the waffenarbe on the infantry platoon I completed last week was totally inappropriate for the actual platoon; I'd given them the bright green piping of Panzergrenadiers, but Panzergrenadier platoons are MG not rifle/MG teams (one LMG per base, not one per squad). As a result I've had to change the shoulder boards and I took the opportunity to not bother with waffenarbe, going for rank boards without coloured piping. By doing this I can multi-purpose my support elements like mortars and anti-tank guns and use such platoons as both grenadier and panzergrenadier units, meaning I don't need duplicate units that only vary by what coloured stripes are on their shoulders.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hans, are we the bad guys?

Greetings folks,


After my detour into Britishness, its back to the Germans.


The first of three panzergrenadier platoons for my Normandy 9th Panzerdivision forces, I've got both trucks and half tracks lined up for them to give me the option of both armoured and conventional panzergrenadiers but won't be painting the vehicles for a bit. The infantry, however, are all done and dusted.


Platoon.


Command team.


First squad


Second squad.


Third squad.

Next up I'll be going on the defensive, building up a large collection of fortifications for the Normandy Festungkompanie lists. Some of these are quite recent, others are a bit older.


HMG pillbox and nests.


8 cm mortar pits.


5cm PaK 38 bunker with removable defilade walls.


3.7cm PaK 36 nests.


8" trench sections (got four of these primed)


Random trench sections (bends are 4", command post is 5" and inner curve is 3")


Barbed wire section, first of about two dozen I'll need to make.


Not sure what I'll pain up first, probably the array of nests as they should be quite quick and easy to do.

The best laid plans. . .

Greeting readers,

It it is often said that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and I think its safe to say I'm my own worst enemy. After making grand declarations about my intentions for the coming year my local FoW ranger announced his intent to run a blood big D-Day game at the local club in early June (to coincide with D-Day, obviously) so I now find myself preparing to defend Fortress Europe. 

Don't really have any plan as such, just going to paint a selection of stuff and see what happens. On that note, I've finished my first fortification, a 7.5cm Feldkanone bunker.

And a scale shot with a German command team.

Currently working on a selection of nests, trenches, traps and other horrible ways to defeat those pesky Allies. And if I get bored of those, I've always got 10,000 points or so of Heer and SS to paint. 

Cheers for now!

Fresh from the Panzerwerks

Greetings! 

It has been a long time since I've bothered to update anything here, mainly as I've not been doing a great deal of hobbying as of late, but I'm back in the proverbial saddle and concentrating on teeny tiny WW2 stuff at the moment.

Most recently I've painted a bunch of vehicles from a 559. Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung task force that opposed the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and the advances of the British XXX Corps during Market Garden. I have three Jagdpanthers (converted from PSC Panthers), four StuG Gs (FoW Open Fire boxed sets plastics) and three Wirberlinds (converted from PSC Panzer IVs), all painted in a fairly standard western European camouflage scheme and adorned with bits of foliage, stowage and tank riders.

The full group

The Jagdpanthers

The StuGs

The Wirbelwinds

Cheers for looking folks!