Second game for 2009 – scary, I know!

Two fridays back Peter and I had our second game for the year. Last year so many events worked against us playing – we only had three games for the year…and so far it’s been a game a month (effectively). Yay!

Since we had an armoured slugfest last time, we decided to revisit the infantry-vs-infantry style of game that we had enjoyed last year.  In fact, it even ended up being infantry and artillery only – no armour or SPGs at all (although if fellow club members could’ve loaned me six Wespes, I woulda gone for some mobile artillery too). I had a few vehicles – some Opel Blitzes and two 251/1Cs, but none were meant to be used in the attack. It was just going to be my Infantry company with some Offboard Artillery against whatever Peter had points for.

Let me detail the agreements made pre-game. This was to be a Quality German Attack – so whatever Point Value (PV) total I had, Peter would have half that for his forces. We agreed on No Vehicles (meaning no tanks or SPGs that were also tank destroyers). We agreed on each having Offboard Artillery. I ended up with approximately 2200 PV, so Peter had to take half that. In Panzerfaust: Iron Fist, German forces are expensive because most troops have good experience and Morale by default. Peter may have had only 1100 points to build his army with, but I knew he would end up with at least an Infantry Company plus some Offboard Artillery because Soviet troops are so cheap. Whatever else he was able to afford would prove interesting and challenging.

Here’s the map/board for the night:

The idea was for the terrain to represent a village or hamlet in a valley. Thusly I placed as many hills and elevated ground around the edges of the board as I could. The village was just four buildings, with a pond in between two of them…it represented a clean source of drinking water (maybe a large well or natural spring). Some good-sized fields of crops and an obligatory apple orchard on the edge of town…apples were a popular crop back in Russia and the Eastern Front in general…and it’s easier to buy the pre-made trees or components to make apple trees than to try and do something more exotic like cherry trees (and not Japanese cherry trees, or poor old Anton Chekhov would really be rolling in his grave). Some copses of trees on the town outskirts and some trees on the hills too.

Preparation: a Light, Westerly wind was rolled. My troops were coming in from the Western side of the board. The Objective that I had to reach in 10 turns was the road in between the four buildings.

Turn One – my forces came on board safely, in the Northwest, travelling Southeast. My 150mm Offboard Artillery was aimed at the nearest edge of the nearest house to my forces. Before I began rolling, Peter said he had deployed badly – but when he heard I had 150mm artillery, he said it would be a quick game! (He even suggested post-game that if I had selected only 105mm artillery, then I would’ve had much more trouble breaking his troops’ Morale).

I had two pairs of 15omm guns. I rolled two hits and two misses – killing a Soviet platoon HQ base and squad straight off. A good opening for me!

Turn Two:  Now I could see some of the defenders,  right in the outer edges of the fields, closest to me. Peter had opted for an aggressive defence and deployed accordingly.  He had mortars – they rained down fire on my Company HQ as it was moving down to its intended position. The Russians opened up on my infantry with MMGs, LMGs and rifles  for a fierce 46 Fire Factors at 25cm range. He rolled a 6 to get +1, but then suffered -2 for being Conscript troops. So, in conclusion he was -1 at 40cm…I lost 7 bases, which I spread out amongst the squads. I had to test Morale for 4 squads…the overall platoon was fine but some squads were Shaken, so they hit the deck and were just going to fire back.

My 3rd Platoon also came under heavy fire, losing the Platoon HQ. I rolled a 6…-5 left me with a final result of 1…that platoon was Shaken. They also were going to stay still and just shoot back, too.

My Artillery now came down. Even though I rolled shockingly, I still wiped out all the troops concealed inside the building, forcing Peter to test Morale.

The Germans returned rifle & LMG fire, killing a Russian MMG and some grunts. The killing of the MMG was due to Peter determining that my German LMGs could target the MMG, with leftover factors carrying over onto the surrounding bases as “splash damage”. This is an unofficial decision that worked well and will need codifying somewhere…stay tuned.

The nearest platoon of Russians have had enough and began to Retreat – the first time I’ve ever got Peter to retreat! Still, the Russian Company as a whole rolls 3 Morale, so they are OK…just.

The Russian mortars come down again on my Company HQ and softskins – killing my Company HQ. For once, I roll well in testing the Company Morale in a crisis – and get 8, leading to a final result of 1. We are Shaken for a turn but still in the game.

Turn Three – No more advancing for me – I’m Shaken so can only stay still and fire back. I disembark the four 120mm Battalian Support mortars out of the surving Opel Blitzes – they can fire on Turn Five. The 251/1C in front of the Opel Blitzes that I was using to make a FAO mobile  kills off some Russians with its LMG, so the other Russian bases near it surrender to me.

One of Peter’s platoons continued its retreat but sadly for them they ran into my 150mm Artillery Barrage and were all killed.

Turn Four – I can move again! I had set up my company 81mm support mortars last turn and they could now fire. They missed. His mortars killed off a LMG base attached to my Company HQ teams.

Turn Five – I decided to change my Offboard Artillery fire from Pre-determined as I wanted to silence his mortars and so I had to roll to Call Down my Artillery onto a new target. I succeeded and silenced one of the Russian mortars, but his Mortars hit my 120mm Mortars whom are forced to flee off the table (they were right next to it).

I roll my Company Morale again – a 3 – leading to a Retreat. Game Over. I was so close this time to forcing him into a Retreat and winning…arghhhhh.

Here’s a photo of the FAO in the 251/1C directly fighting Russian infantry:

This time I had remembered everything.  Smokescreens, the lot.  It was him hitting my Company HQ so early on that prevented me winning…I must place them somewhere safer, not on a wing, and certainly not let them start high on a hill where they can be seen and mortared!

The saggy baggy Jagdpanther

Well, they may be 1/76 scale, but these Revell Jagdpanthers (originally Matchbox) come up looking the part.

This post will address two things, as follows:

1) These kits come with two jerrycans that are glued onto the starboard side of the Jagdpanther. The racks forward on the superstructure, where pioneering equipment was stored, are all empty. This clashes with all the other kits I’ve assembled or are assembling, where there are plenty of items of stowage or pioneering tools. There is a mallet on the rear plate, but nothing else.

Now, wisely I have retained leftovers from previous kits, so I’ve added plenty of extras to make these tank destroyers look like working units and not museum pieces. From the Roden Opel Blitz kits, I saved a rolled up tarpaulin. One got that. From the UM Marder IIIs, I saved spare picks and shovels. From the Italeri StuG III, I saved buckets. Picks and shovels were divided up and glued on different sides of different units. now they look like working vehicles! The moral of this is: always save unused materials, especially stowage. You’ll want them for kits that don’t have enough (or any at all).

2) Bad track sag – I mentioned that I’ve come to realise that the track sag I did with the first kit matched the track sag of a Tiger…but when I checked my sources, didn’t match a Jagdpanther’s track sag at all. For example, have a look at these historical photos. As you see, the historical evidence shows that the sag is more like a bow – the first vehicle I did looks like the tracks are much looser, so loose that they are lying on top of the return rollers.

Now, to get more accurate sag (using these horrible soft vinyl tracks that can’t do a proper job anyway) some more careful glueing was going to be involved. Two months ago, my household decided to retire all its old chopsticks and use freshly-purchased uniform ones from China. I saved all the old chopsticks for use with my hobbies. So, I cut them up, split them, broke them into little pieces, etc.  Then, wedging them in at the right places after shaping them, I achieved better sag with the remaining three. The moral of this is: always check historical sources first before assembly.

***

The Tigers are moving forward slowly because I’m painting the stowed pioneering tools and all the other little fiddly bits. Procrastination strikes, too. As Summer is just two weeks away, I have to get a wriggle on, or it’ll get too hot to do much hobby work done.

A panzerfaust in any other colour…will still have the same effect in-game

The bases of teams with panzerfausts for that Infantry company are now up to the basing and flocking stage. I spent a fair bit of time and inconclusive researching trying to determine what was the factory colour for panzerfausts. The photo evidence of panzerfausts delivered by the Wehrmacht but unused showed them to either be a green that I had not previously sighted anywhere in use, or a sort of off-white / beige. I decided to select Citadel’s Cammo Green for my panzerfausts, feeling that it was distinct enough and not wanting to try to make a blend to match a colour photo taken with a weak flash in a dark room. So, my panzerfaust teams will look like this:

That’s good enough.

The first of my StuG III’s by Italeri have come off the assembly line and are complete.

I’m doing some minor kitbashing to modify and enhance them.  Have a look at this photo:

On the back, I used leftover parts from the Roden Opel Maultiers and Opel Blitzes to make an equipment frame for the crew’s gear. This was a common field modification and some were even added in the factory. Panzer Grenadiers also found them useful as handholds when riding on the back. They were simple bits of metal welded into a crude frame.

Using leftover brass wire from the ACE PaK 38’s and my fine hand screwdriver, I added the aerial. I also wanted the vehicle to look battle-hardened, so I used my scalpels and files to remove the first plate of the left-hand-side schurzen. Schurzen plates were often lost from enemy fire or were snagged and ripped off when moving through rough scrub and rough terrain.

Lastly, I didn’t want this vehicle to have an autumn of spring look (mud everywhere), so I went for a high summer look and liberally coated it with dust. The effect is quite good. Careful observers will notice I painted in some sides of the track links being used as extra armour…again, another field modification by some crews.

I like this Italeri kit. Yes, it’s been simplified and doesn’t allow much modification but turns into a fine kit with a little extra work and love.

Kit management

I finally finished applying the Doug Chaltry technique to the tracks of the Opel Maultiers as well as a SdKfz 11 halftrack that I got when I bought ESCI’s “Don: the long retreat” 1/72 scale diorama set. I bought that diorama set new from a little shop I know. I bought it in order to get the KV-1 and Russian Infantry out of it, as back then I was going to be playing Russians. Instead, I’ve ended up playing Germans, so I’ve ended up using everything out of that diorama set, as it also held German Infantry, the SDKfz 11 and an Opel Blitz (which you’ve already seen and read about earlier).

I’ve also being painting up a Hasegawa Schwimmwagen I picked up last month at that swap-n-sell I went to. It’s a fun little vehicle and I even successfully kitbashed an extra rest/brace for the LMG, after ruining the first brace, successfully improvising a replacement, then making a second brace. It’s been well coated with Desert Yellow – today I was beginning the detail, being the seat covers, tyres, LMG and canvas canopy. I was originally going to do the interior with Kommando Khaki – many German AFVs had light buff tan interiors, according to Panzer Colours 1 by Culver & Murphy (Squadron/Signal pubs.), but this is not really an AFV, so I just made it Desert Yellow as per the exterior.

I’m beginning to digress – with those Maultier tracks finished, I was able to begin working on the rest of the vehicles, touching up the exterior Desert Yellow including fine detail spots, then fix the Bestial Brown job on the tray. The tarpaulins on the back got Catachan Green, but will have a patchy Desert Yellow coat applied, to represent the spraypainting of tarpaulins.

All this piecework means that I have lots of kits on the go, as I can only do a little work on each, then leave them for periods to dry properly. With it being winter here, drying periods are longer. So, I’ve decided to have lots of things on the go, rather than just working in five minute spurts two or three times a day, which I feel wastes the rest of my leisure time. Thus, today I opened up four of those Revell Tiger I Ausf. E’s and washed the sprues, to prepare them for undercoating and assembly. I’ve also being working on some more scenery. I was given a couple of Fujimi 1/76 kits for my recent birthday by the mighty President of Nunawading Wargames Association. I can use some more houses – I’d love to do a skirmish between infantry companies in a sizeable village, with lots of house-to-house combat…so I’ve been having to mix up some brick colours to match the ruins from the tragic town of Oradour, which I’m using as my reference point.

So, I’ve got a Schwimmwagen, Schwimmwagen driver, 3-ton SdKfz 11 halftrack, three Opel Maultiers, two houses all on the go, with four washed Tiger sprues drying out. Time management? Sort of. I prefer “kit management”.

SNAFU

Today is the day after a long weekend, and I’ve just spent a fair portion of this evening painting. Tonight’s effort feels more worthwhile than all the efforts over the previous three days, even though that time is far greater than the two-point-something hours of tonight.

Trout season officially ended at 12.01AM this morning, and 1/3 of yesterday was spent making the most of the last open day. I did see a trout, but it also saw me and took off like a whippet with a bum full of dynamite.

The rest of yesterday would’ve yielded over four hours spent on my modelling pursuits. Probably three and a half of those hours were effectively fruitless because I had to twice re-do backbreaking, painstaking, fiddly, time-consuming glueing. It all came about in this way…while waiting for the driver’s cabins’ interiors to dry after their second paint application, I decided to assemble the suspension brackets and bogies of the Opel Maultiers’ rear caterpillar treads/tracks. I was really enjoying working on this Roden kit, as you’ll be aware from earlier posts when I assembled their Opel Blitz kit (in 1/72 scale, of course). However, putting the bogies onto the suspension brackets looked lop-sided – I realised that I would have to make opposing sets, so that everything would be equal when assembled. The problem with this decision was that I was going to have to re-do half of what I had assembled, which was all assembled in the one direction. This I did, while inwardly cursing, getting glue all over my fingers and inhaling the glue fumes.

Whilst preparing dinner, I realised that what I had done was all for nought…the reason everything was lop-sided was that the moulding of the bogies was not perfect – I was meant to punch a hole manually through the other side of the bogie, so that both pins of the suspension track could go into it! There was extra flash on each bogie, but it looked completely natural, as if you weren’t meant to drive the suspension bracket pins through both sides but only one, leaving the other to lop-sidedly press against this sealed, flat other side!

After dinner was outward mumbling, inward swearing, loud music, messy fingers from glue and paint and slight headspin from the glue. The outcome was the suspension brackets as intended by Roden and real life.

Ah, what a grand stuff-up. Since I had already been doing some piercing of the bogies to clear up some other flash, I should have realised more quickly that the actual axle holes on the bogies also needed to be pierced so that everything would fit and be equal, just like on the instructions…

Still, victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat. I thought I’d ruined the three kits on what should’ve been relatively straightforward work. The lesson? Always make “test” assemblies and don’t be afraid to modify with scalpels/compasses/drills/knives when when the test assembly seems wrong but all is well on the instructions…

Not an ACE effort

Been a while between drinks – and right now, a Cascade Pale Ale is travelling downwards.

The ACE Models PaK-38 anti-tank gun is completed. Finally. Thank goodness. Becuase I did not enjoy any step of it’s construction. Parts where there was no pin to connect one part to another; an uneven finish (the struts don’t lie flat, so I’ll have to file down one wheel so the darn thing sits flat) and the requirement for thin wire, not included in the box, all made me glad to be finished this one, and only have two more to do.

Come Hell or high water, I’ll sell those ACE PaK-40’s and buy the Italeri ones. Oh, they may not be as detailed as the ACE one, but give a stuff! The detail DID NOT really add much to this kit – in fact, I think at 1/72, some detail should be sacrificed in order to have a kit that assembles well. I certainly don’t feel that this one really did.

Now I’ll have to paint up some crew while assembling the other two. No worries – I’ve got a whole load of MG-42 medium machinegun crews to do. The PaK gunners can join their queue.

Next AFV project? I’m due for one, after these PaKs. I’ll jump in the deep end – Tigers. Oh yeah.

…

By the by, I finished painting the ESCI Opel Blitz. Very quick and straightforward to assemble, took paint well, and now it sits next to the Roden one. Sadly, I now prefer the Roden! The extra detail there (wing mirrors etc.) give it a little extra life…make it look real whereas the ESCI looks like a Hot Wheels imitation.

While I wait for Tigers, I’m going to do the Roden Opel Blitz Maultiers. 3 of ‘em. Winter camo pattern, here we come!

The Blitz is over

Last night, all glueing and assembly of the ESCI Opel Blitz was completed. I compared it to the Roden that I finished a few months ago. The ESCI was very easy to assemble and had good detail, but it lacked the extras that the Roden had – such as the wing mirrors; rests for the shovel and pick; no cab-mounted spotlight.

I wondered if I should have done it as an open-top – ie., that I hadn’t glued the tarpaulin over the tray. Too late now.

I wonder if the Opel Blitz re-released by Italeri has had those little bits of nice extra detail included? Maybe sometime in the future I’ll need a few more trucks. ..

I also have had a couple of nights working on the ESCI Hanomag. Plenty of good detail but still fast and straightforward to assemble. It is definitely being done without it’s tarpaulin – after all, the crew are all in shorts and short sleeves, so it makes sense. I’m tempted to do a mid 1943 camoflage scheme – stripes of Dark Yellow over the traditional Dark Grey. I’m not intending to have lots of Hanomags, so this one can afford to be a little more “unique” and time-restricted, since they will hardly ever be used in play.

Some thoughts – ESCI Opel Blitz & ACE Pak 38

ESCI: “Gee, this has been really easy to make, and still has plenty of detail! Why couldn’t the Roden kit have been this straightforward?!”

ACE: “ARGH!!! Damn it! The actual pieces don’t have the detail on them that the instruction sheet says they should have!!! How am I meant to secure the gun barrel to the rest of the frame when these three pieces don’t have the pins on them for securing the barrel, that the instruction sheet says they should???” ………..and then, later on: “ARGHHH! Not more problems! Now I have to use pieces of wire (not supplied, of course – why the Hell would they, if their pieces don’t match the instructions?!) and I can’t get beyond the middle stage without using wire! What’s more, I can’t use any old wire….” (check my supply of wire): “Too thin!!! It’ll have to wait until next bloody weekend! Bah, not worth it, this kit! If I hadda known, I would’ve waited for and bought the Italeri kit, it even comes with gun crews!”

3rd Platoon to get flocked

It was New Year’s Day when I last updated you properly about the infantry I’ve been doing alongside the AFVs and vehicles. It seems like it’s taken forever to do them, but on the weekend I finally finished all the painting for 3rd Platoon and the Company HQ bases. Last night they were glued to bases and tonight the good old Kayak brown paint (also used for hill-making) was slopped on liberally. I also ended up with 3 times the same amount of painted guys who didn’t end up on bases, and now will have no home or love. What was I thinking?!

During the Easter extended holiday, I zoomed around a number of hobby shops looking for Woodlands Scenics T49, their Green Blend flock in a 50 cu.in. bag, which I’ve been using as grass on: bases for nearly all my figures (whether WW2 or not); hills; other bits of terrain…and found nary a pinch across all my favoured vendors (5 across metro Melbourne). So now I’m going to be in a holding pattern with finishing them and a hill I’ve been doing on the side, whilst I wait for new shipments of flock to arrive.

This means that I now have time to do the ESCI Opel Blitz and the ESCI 3-ton Half-track (Hanomag) I’ve got, as well as doing the 6 HAT Armourfast MG43 MMG (medium machinegun) teams to support the Infantry and three ACE PaK 38 anti-tank guns that were in the big order from HobbyTerra. Variety – the spice of life.

Cheers from the factory floor

At last, the first Marder III (h) and Opel Blitz 4X2 are done.

Here’s the Marder:

and here’s the Opel Blitz:

They both came out fairly well.

The camouflage scheme on the Marder was a lot of fun to do, and I hope fairly historically accurate. The darkness of each colour shows the technicals and crew had plenty of the new paint and spare petrol to play with in making and applying it.

The Marder turned out to be fairly straightforward to assemble, until it came to assembling the gun and turret. The gun was far more work than it should be, with elevation wheels that had to be individually glued on and pins that weren’t big enough to truly support the barrel on it’s frame. The turret is made of individual plates of armour (historically accurate) but they don’t necessarily sit well or fit well, and the instruction sheet is done from a difficult angle to really see how to accurately fit everything. With this model, the turret came out well. With the remainder (which have just finished gluing and polyfilling) the turrets are leaning on angles or look awkward. Also, the grille on the back has a tendency to lean, too. My suggestion to UM would be to make both the turret and the rear grille simpler to construct – less pieces. The grille is in 5 parts – it could be in 1. The turret is in 8 pieces – it could be in 6 or 4. The UM moulds are very good – I don’t think much detail would be lost.

The Opel Blitz was nerve-wracking during the first half of assembly and then fiddly but fun for the rest. My one gripe about it is that the tray didn’t sit flat on the back of the chassis – so it is leaning to the left and looks odd. Coupled with the front axle going the other way (so one wheel is well off the ground), it doesn’t look so great. But it paints up well, and includes GrossDeutschland symbol decals (which you can see on the door) which are two plusses. I’m now going to build an old ESCI kit of the exact same vehicle. It has only two sprues and lots of the individual parts from the Roden kit are premoulded together in the ESCI kit, so building it looks deceptively quick and easy. For example, the engine block is one piece for ESCI – about a dozen for Roden.

Some more notes: the Marder had decals for kill markers, which I tried applying near the muzzle brake and failed miserably. I painted them instead – it looks fine. The Opel Blitz had decals for the number plates – again, the attempted application went awry because the numberplate has the registration moulded on – so the decal can’t glue to the ridges and bumps! I just painted the registration on with a 20/0 brush. All failed decals went in the bin.

Anyway, now the other 3 Marders are about to get their paintjobs. I didn’t do any painting of the hull after painting the tracks like last time, so all the Desert Yellow will go on at once.

More photos of the first two vehicles can be seen over at my Flickr account.