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.

We're gonna need a bigger bloke. . .

Friend, readers, countrymen. . .

Belated greeting to you all. Blogspot, rather smugly, informs me it has been five months sine I last posted and in that time a huge amount has happened. I've switched jobs, got married and visited the Midlands over the past few months. All of this has eaten into my hobby time to the point where I even enjoyed spray painting plant pots for table decorations.

Fear not, though, for I am back to defend my honour from the one known as Simon. He has challenged me to paint a single Bolt Action figure per month. Why has he lain down such a challenge? Quite simply, to get back at me for manipulating him into something new and hobby related. In fairness, I've had Bolt Action for months but simply done nothing with it. What do I have? I'm glad you asked.

A starter set and a core box of both US Airborne and German FJ, to give me a couple of cheeky wee Market Garden themed forces. Unfortunately, Warlord have gone for a Normandy feel with their figures so a little converting will be required before I can paint them up, but I needn't rush as I'm only expected to do one a month.

And just so I don't post an update without any painted figures, have a couple of Panther Gs!

These are the start of my generic FoW Panzerbrigade force, suitable of pretty much anything after Normandy. Got a few more near enough done, so hopefully I can finish marking and weathering those in the not too distant future.

Peace out folks! 

One does not simply build an Open Fire Sherman

Greetings readers,

It has been a couple of weeks since I've updated, been busy with real life and multiple different project running simultaneously. As a follow up to the last post, I've been cataloguing and constructing a veritable bucket load of fortifications in preparation for some serious painting action in the future, and I've also got a platoon of Heer Grenadiers on the painting table (they're almost done, probably to the point where WiP shots are basically pointless). 

Today, however, I'm showing off something different. In addition to the up-coming Firestorm Cean campaign, there is a possibility my local club may be running a Market Garden campaign. Now, Market Garden has always been one of my favourite campaigns of WW2; the hopeless optimism, the insane heroism and the sheer variety of forces involved (and thats just the Germans) makes for an exciting setting with a lot of scope for cool scenarios and awesome armies. Having previously inventoried by backlog of FoW stuff I discovered I have rather a lot of British stuff, and my original intention had been to keep things fairly generic on the infantry side of things and use my large array of Shermans to represent a number of different units. After thinking it over, I realised this was a stupid idea as it was robbing me of the opportunity to field a single, truly massive, force for excessive mega gaming. 

Enter the Irish Guards Battlegroup. As it stands just now, I have a full armoured squadron with two rifle platoons in support and a full infantry company with two armoured troops in support. This gives me a total of six Sherman troops and five rifle platoons as well as full command sections for both and the obligatory JOE Vandaleur. I also have some MGs and mortars with carriers, Stuarts and M10s on the way. I've been working away on the first Sherman troop, trying to blend the Open Fire Shermans with the older (and far better) resin tanks, going mad with stowage and camo netting as well as a few tank riders.



These are ready for painting, once they've had a quick wash, and will likely be next on the desk once I finish the grenadiers. I've also converted up a couple of specialist tanks to fill out the squadron, a dozer Sherman and an ARV.









Thanks for looking folks, see you next time! 

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!

Green Light Means Jump!

Good afternoon folks,

It is once again time for a cheeky wee update from the desk of Dave, probably long overdue seeing as got these finished last week and just haven't had the time to upload photos!

Parachute 75mm Artillery Battery

First gun section

Second gun section

Command, staff and observer teams

Completing this final platoon now gives me something I've never had in over a decade of wargaming. . . A fully painted army! Quite pleased about that, to be honest.

The full 1750 points force

The astute amongst you (if he is here today) will note that I've rearranged the bazookas, moving them back to the company HQ. This is probably a more sensible idea as it means I can boost each rifle platoon with a second bazooka and double their tank killing powers. 

Well, thats it from me for now. Off to open the feldgrau now. Toodles! 

The Black Bull Rides

Afternoon folks, time for another update.

Finally got my tank troop painted up, and they are looking mighty fine. My original intention had been to paint the Shermans in this list as a troop from the 2nd Irish Guards, but after doing a little more research into Britain's armoured divisions I realised that it would be inappropriate to do so. Throughout the entire war, the Guards Armoured division were pretty strict about using their vehicles as they were supplied. They didn't up arm their half tracks with MGs, nor did they jalopy their light tanks or armoured cars; with this in mind, they certainly wouldn't have used cast/welded hybrid Firefly tanks. I needn't have worried, however, as the 11th Armoured division were certainly more than willing to add, remove and change things on their vehicles at the drop of a hat. So allow me to present to you No. 3 Troop, A Squadron, 3rd Royal Tank Regiment.

3 Troop, A Sqn, 3 RTR

Command Tank

A Tank

B Tank

C Tank

With the completion of the Sherman troop I've only got the parachute artillery battery to paint and then I can call this army done! And finally, before I sign off, I found this little gem on the intertubes the other day, and while its a couple of days late its fairly appropriate since Thursday was the 69th anniversary of the D Day landings. . .

Peace out folks!  

Picking Up From Before

Time for another update! 

Apologies for the last, very short, post. Was half way through writing it when I was summoned away so to pick up from where I left off, here is what I'm planning on for a 1750 points 85 Infantriedivision force.

• Company HQ with two panzerschreck teams and  panzerfaust command teams
• Three full rifle platoons with panzerfaust command teams
• Machine Gun platoon with two sections
• Mortar platoon with three sections
• Anti tank platoon with two PaK40 guns
• Fallschirmjager platoon with two squads 
• Schwere Panzerjager platoon with 3 StuG Gs 
• Artillery battery with 2 gun sections (using SS models)

The idea behind the force is that I'll be using a core of Heer from 85 division, with some mopped up units from KG Walther (artillery and FJ platoon) and 559 Schere Panzerjagerabtielung. Hoping to get started on this force fairly soon, once I've rounded off the 101st guys I'm working on just now. Speaking of which. . .

Mortar platoon

Airborne Anti Tank platoon

Also a WIP of the next unit on my bench,

Sherman troop. 

Peace out for now folks.

Backshifts and Big Guns

Afternoon readers, time for another wee update from the desk of Dave.

This past week has been rather busy at work and, while the coming week is also busy, I've moved from business shift (9 a.m. starts) to backshift (2 p.m. starts) for this week. This means I've actually got a few hours to myself every morning and will be able to squeeze in a bit of painting before work. This morning was spent on my current platoon, taking them from the green base layer to what you will now see below.

Airborne anti tank platoon

At this rate of progress, I should get markings, metallics and washes done tomorrow, maybe even gritting and painting the bases (though no grass yet. . .). This, in turn, should clear the way to start on the mortars or howitzer battery this week, putting me on course to get the army finished by the end of the month.

Short and sweet one today, hopefully my next update will be a little more substantial. 

Bye for now!

Curahee!

Evening readers.

After about five, maybe six, minutes of agonising contemplation, I decided just to use the tufts I had left and get the third and final rifle platoon finished off.

Third rifle platoon

With third platoon done, I finally have the fighting core of the army, all three combat platoons and the HQ are now done, and I can finally move on to the fun (large calibre and high explosive) elements of the force. Now I'm really excited! 

Airborne anti-tank platoon

This platoon should be fairly easy to bash over the next couple of weeks, though at present I'll be unable to take them all the way to completion and put greenery onto their bases. Never mind. . . 

FoW Goodness Sake. . .

A wise man once said "start as you mean to go on" but a slightly lazier man once said "why do today what you can put off until tomorrow."

I was planning to do this over the weekend but I've been talked into taking on some overtime at work so I figured I'd put an update on here today and actually give you lovely lot something to look at! As promised, today's update is the first of many that will involve Flames of War. This game is probably my game of the moment as it combines fairly simple rules and easily acquired models with my favourite period in history: the second world war. 

My previous efforts with Flames have been a little sporadic and over the years I've picked up a variety of models with little semblance of a plan, something which has resulted in an erratic and slightly incompatible collection of stuff. I an attempt to prevent that from happening in future, I've decided to limit myself to not just a single period or single theatre, but a single campaign. That campaign is Market Garden, and I'll be collecting and painting American, German and British forces for all the major units that took part. Additionally, I'll be putting together a large selection of terrain appropriate for battles in The Netherlands. All of that is to come in the future, and for now I'm just trying to do the impossible and paint a full and usable force (I've never once achieved this in over a decade of wargaming!). That force is as follows. . . 

101st Airborne Parachute Company

• Company HQ
• Three rifle platoons with three small squads each
• MG platoon with four MGs and one bazooka
• Mortar platoon with four tubes
• Airborne AT platoon with two guns, bazookas and jeeps
• Airborne artillery battery with four tubes 
• Irish Guards troop with two Shermans and two Fireflies

All in all this list comes in at 1750 points, though as I've only played two or three games of third edition I have no idea if this list will actually work. Guess I'll have to find out the hard way. A pre painted picture of the force is below, along with pictures of the platoons I have painted thus far.

1750 points list

HQ section with MG platoon's bazooka

MG platoon

First rifle platoon

Second rifle platoon

Currently have the third platoon work in progress just now, hoping to get them done within the next few days and then probably move on to some of the fun stuff.

Until next time folks!