Time to make some better hills 3 & 4

Now it’s time to seal the hills. If these were troops or vehicles, I’d be sealing them (to protect the paintwork) with Testors Dullcote. I seal hills with Woodland Scenics spray-on/brush-on Scenic Cement as it glues the flock from the top side, meaning that at the end of the process it’s glued from below and above and will only come off under physical duress.

I prepare the spraying area. In the past, I put newspaper on the floor and walls of a corner of a room and sprayed. Now I’m doing it in the garden shed. I get my cardboard box shield and it’s removable cardboard floor: and place newspaper on the removable floor to absorb any overspray or runoff: then put the fllor into place and place the hills in position: . I use a cheap garden sprayer/mister with 500ml reservoir as they are available in hardware shops and supermarkets – either I pour the Scenic Cement into the reservoir (usually when the Scenic Cement bottle level is low) or put the sprayer mechanism directly onto the Scenic Cement bottle (when the level is high, as is here -a brand-new, unopened bottle).Spray from the front, the sides and very lightly from the top: then take out the cardboard floor, rotate it 180 degrees, put it in place and spray from the front. Then leave the hills to dry (I always wait 24 hours). Be sure to carefully wash out your sprayer/mister, otherwise the glue will harden and interfere with the mechanism. I rinse it out and spray clean water through it twice. Even so, glue will still ruin it in time (over a few years of annual use, so hence the need to buy cheap sprayers/misters.

Next day, have a look at your finished products! . I’m very happy with how the SeeNiks Earth Blend flock turned out – it looks like this: . I think it looks fantastic, far better than the Woodland Scenics Earth Blend which contrasts too much with green flock. This SeeNiks flock also is a bit grittier…there are cut fibres and large flakes of sawdust in there, that make it look more like broken ground that’s dry than the “polished mud” appearance of Woodland Scenics’ product.

Your hills are now complete. Remove all the posterboard pins from underneath and store your hills or get a game on with them. Here are some photos of the hills with my Tiger Is:    . Just a quick check that the hills are taller than the tanks, thus completely blocking LOS when everyone’s at ground level : – they sure are.

 

First game of 2012; early 1945

First game was on friday. Somewhere on the Eastern Front, early 1945 – probably March. Clear and no wind. Here’s the map: – the Objective was to reach the crossroads in the centre of the map  and hold it, with at least undamaged vehicle, until the end of Turn 10. The map was not too complicated – fields, orchards, treelines, low hills – and on one side, a small power plant: . I had an anit-tank SP company, two platoons of StuG IIIG and one platoon of JagdPanzer IV L70.

TURN 1: Movement. My StuGs race to reach optimal firing positions: while the JgPz stay concealed behind a treeline. The two Soviet tank companies do the same: . After all this movement, there was combat! At the time, I said this was a first, having combat in the first turn…but it may well have happened before, so I’m not too sure. Anyway, T-34/85s on the left flank shoot at the StuGs over there – 2 shots resulting in one kill and one StuG being Tracked  – it’s tracks are hit and it now can’t move. I roll Morale for the Tracked StuG and the crew bail out. I now have to test the Morale of that Platoon – the final result is a 2, and so that Platoon will Flee the battle . I now test for the whole Company – I roll a 10 – that’s fine, they pass.

TURN 2: It is possible for me to try to stop the panicked StuG platoon fleeing the table…I need to get my Company HQ StuGs over to them (to talk some sense to them face to face). Sadly this is impossible – that Platoon is already very close to the edge of the map and my HQ can’t get there in time – so I lose them off the map and out of the game. The PJgPzs stay put. I move my remaining StuGs up to a treeline. The Russians consolidate their positions on the map  and prepare to race to the Objective. A keen T-34/85 tries to shoot a StuG but fails to hit. The Stugs see the muzzleflash (I rolled for it and passed) so now they know roughly where the enemy is on the left flank.

TURN 3: My StuGs lay down a Smokescreen by firing smoke shells with their main guns. While doing so, the enemy opens up on them and one is knocked out of action and a second one damaged so badly that the crew decided to bail out and flee  . I have to test the Morale of this central platoon – they are Shaken for 2 Turns. I test my Company’s Morale – a 5 – low, but OK.

TURN 4: The StuGs have to reverse to try to safely get to a better position. The JgPz IV L70s hold. The Russians race to new positions and also closer to the Objective , also laying smokescreens to shield them from unwanted attention by my boys.

TURN 5: The StuGs continue reversing. The first Russian tank reaches the Objective whilst others try to lay down more smoke.

TURN 6: MY StuG platoon is no longer Shaken. They lay down a small smokescreen that allows a JgPz to move onto the road and the others to break cover . The Russians lay down smoke in front of them so they cannot shoot at the T-34/85s racing in from the right flank to help bolster defence of the Objective.

TURN 7: More movement by everyone. Some jockeying to be in firing positions by the end of the Movement phase.

TURN 8: Lots of movement. A StuG hits a T-34/85 but the shot bounces off.

TURN 9: My Company Commander hits a T-34/85 and Stuns it. The Russians try to knock out the JgPz on the roadside but miss. They now have a good hold of the Objective .

TURN 10: My StuGs haven’t completed their shift to new positions so it’s all down to the JgPz IV L70 on the road to try to shift the Soviet tanks out of position. It fires and wipes out a T-34/76 – sadly not a Company Commander, so the Russians are staying put. That was how the Turn ended and the game too, as the Russians have the Objective and outnumber us 4:1.

Peter had brought along two mates of his whom each took a side and got involved in the game. Both enjoyed themselves.

AFTER ACTION REVIEW: This wasn’t much of a slugfest. It showed the importance of good Movement and positioning. It also showed the value of smokescreens. An interesting game.

Now for some wargamer eye candy! Here’s some detail of one of Peter’s T-34/85 commanders: , here are my haystacks being used as terrain: and here’s another shot of those JgPz IV L70s: . Those JgPz IV L70s are mine, but I didn’t paint them…they were a win on eBay. The StuGs you see early in the post with the two-tone camouflage scheme, full schürzen and loads of stowage are Peter’s mate Scott’s. They are the quality and level that I aspire to in my wargame modelling.

Armoured cars by UM Model, part 4 – PLUS completed terrain pieces and another StuG III

The UM Model armoured cars (Бронеавтомобиль) are done!

I mentioned in my previous post that I was getting carried away with how much weathering/how much of a ‘dust coat’ I drybrush onto my vehicles…these photos show that I had gone overboard with these paticulr two kits. If I buy more of these kits to make a platoon, the rest will also be heavily coated like this…but no other kit , regardless what Nation they are for, will get this dusty in the future. It’s too much, methinks.

The kits paint up well, as you can see. I think they would benefit from adding on some extra stowage…I added a toolbox onto the right rear mudguard of one…but I guess some more research is really needed before committing to that recommendation too seriously.

Also, I finished painting up the building and industrial chimney/smokestack I bought at a model train sale back in November. I applied plenty of black as soot and plenty of black ink as fine soot/smoke: . Here’s the building by itself: and here’s the chimney or smokestack by itself: . Together, they could represent some sort of a furnace or smelter, a coal-fired electric power station or any other sort of industrial plant requiring the burning of lots of coal or wood. The colour scheme used was heavily based on that used for the Airfix engine sheds I finished last year.

I also completed an Italeri StuG III, much needed for tomorrow night’s game: .

I have a bare hobby table for the first time in months and I’ll try to keep it bare until Saturday arvo…have a bit of a rest from it all, so I can start some other kits with a clear mind.

***

I decided to put all this finished stuff into a little diorama. Russian recon forces are about to find something that might well prove fatal… .

 

 

Airfix Willys’ Jeep; and what’s on the table

I’ve been working on an Airfix Willys’ Jeep (proper name for the Willys’ Jeep being Willys MB US Army Jeep) that I bought at a swap ‘n sell at a non-swap-‘n-sell price (in other words, regular retail price). I also opted to do up its trailer, inspired by some of Paul from Plastic Soldiers‘ work with the same kit last year. Here’s what my interpretation looks like: . A little dustier than intended…I need to watch that. I’ve been getting carried away with dust lately…a post coming up in the next week or so will help you see what I mean about excessive dustiness on my kits.

This is bigger than the existing Willys’ Jeep that I have, leading me to suspect that the existing one I have is a Matchbox kit.

What purpose will this Jeep serve in my games? Well, as a target for my Germans when I’m playing Germans; as a HQ vehicle or recon vehicle if I’m playing Late War Soviets (when they had lots of Lend-Lease stuff like Willys’ Jeeps).

***

As for what’s on my Hobby Table right at the moment, here are the vehicles currently under production: .

 

Tempted by pre-made, pre-painted terrain 2

After having posted last month about considering buying some pre-made, painted model railway terrain from Hornby, I have been doing some research about their suitability for Eastern Front wargaming. I wanted to try to see if those kinds of stone walls/stone fences are found in the region…or were found in the region at the time.

I employed Google’s image search and tried a number of different search terms in a number of different combinations. I used English words, which I knew would severely restrict the numbers of results I found even before . I did find two photos – one here and one here – but they are both from a museum of Ukrainian folk architecture. Nothing else that I was satisfied with. I had tried a number of different country names – Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany – so I felt I’d been fair.

Once I changed the location search term to to “Britain”, up popped many photos, so stone fences seem to be fairly commonplace in England, Scotland and Ireland but not so much in Eastern Europe.
I won’t buy these stone fences now – I’d rather buy and paint up another set of wooden fences (which you see in some of my AAR/game report photos).

Still, it was worth doing the research.

 

Armoured cars by UM Model, part 2

I could only glue on a few tiny bits & pieces onto these models until I got up to the wheels. Now, the instructions state that the rubber tyres (and yes, they are made with real rubber!)  should not be glued into place, but simply fitted onto the (plastic) wheel hubs and then left alone. The completed wheels can then be glued onto axles etc.

I decided that I didn’t want to undercoat the rubber during undercoating of a completed vehicle  in case the rubber was affected in some way (I’ve had bad experiences with this with rubber terrain). I decided to undercoat everything, assembled and unassembled, before fixing the tyres onto the hubs. So, everything got undercoated.

The remaining assembly took comparatively little time. Here’s how they look, undercoated, assembled and awaiting a proper paint job – first the

BA-6M (БА–6M) and BA-9 (БА-9) together: .

Here’s the BA-6M (БА–6M) by itself: . This armoured car (Бронеавтомобиль, in Russian) is the more useful of the two to me, so during assembly I checked each sprue of both kits carefully and, if some parts on one sprue were more poorly formed or in worse condition than others, I made sure this kit got the best parts.

Now for the BA-9 (БА-9) by itself: . From a distance, this vehicle looks OK. A closer inspection shows the hull-mounted smaller machinegun is ‘bent’ in the middle. This was because the remaining light machinegun available on all the sprues (as one was missing) useable for this kit was broken in two, and this was the best I could do to repair it. Closer inspection also shows that the only accurate towing hook is attached to the rear right…the other three towing hooks I took from surplus Roden Opel Blitz sprues, so this BA-9 is being kept in operation by salvaged parts.

The next stage is a proper paintjob.

The lazy option is just to do overall Russian Green. Since so much of Russian stuff is already Russian Green (and a fair proportion of the unassembled stuff will end up Russian Green too) I decided to do some internet research to see about more interesting paint schemes/camouflage schemes.

Via the RKKA in World War II website, I found some useful stuff, most importantly a whole page on the BA-6 & BA-6M, featuring some recreations of actual camouflage schemes. Fantastic! The “BA-6 from the Separate Recon Battalion /1st Tank Division/1st Mechcorps, The North-western Front, Krasnogvardeysk (Gatchina) region, August 1941” looks like one to try! Oh, and back at the top of the BA-6 page, you can see a BA-6 camouflaged with twigs and branches on the move…

It’s an interesting camouflage (камуфляж) scheme, that one for the 1st Mechanised Corps – it’ll be a good challenge to reproduce. The Russians did camouflage some of their stuff, so always having boring Russian Green paintjobs/camouflage can sometimes be bypassed by us wargamers…just do a little research first.

 

 

 

 

Game report: Game 4, 2011

This game was a replaying of the game we played back in August. Nothing had changed except that the map/table had even fewer clear lines of sight (LOS) and I was able to put my completed MiniArt Eastern European House on display. Here’s an aerial recon photo: .

A few things had happened inside my army since the last game – after Peter’s explanation of the difference between Digging in and Entrenching, I had some more points to spend:

1. The AT Rifle teams went out, Early AT Rifle Grenades were in.
2. An extra PaK40 went in.
3. I was only Entrenched, not Dug In.

So, to begin, we established the Weather for the day. It was a Clear day with a Moderate Westerly wind.

TURN 1: Three T-70 light tanks came on to do some recon:  . A Soviet mortar barrage drops smoke down on the crossroads  whilst 122mm artillery rain down right on top of my 81mm Mortars, but good dice rolling on my behalf saw them head down in their trenches and safe.

TURN 2: The T-70s advance. Soviet artillery and mortars continue. T-34s now come on to the table. The Soviets can see two PaK40s on their right flank: .

Stupidly my mortar crew got out of their trench or something as I rolled badly and they were all killed.

As it was likely the T-34s had seen my PaK40s, they got to work right away. They killed a T-34 and Tracked another   , a great opening for me.

Having lost my Mortars, I Test my Morale and Pass. His tank crew Fail their Test and Bail Out, with the rest of that Platoon (one tank) fleeing! Sadly, the rest of the Russians held on to their firm resolve to defeat the Fascists.

TURN 3: The fleeing T-34 passes it’s Rally Test.

The two PaK40s are LMG’d into silence  , but in doing so they pop the turret off another T-34.

Having lost half of my AT Gun Platoon, I Test the Morale of those remaining and get a 4. They are Shaken for 6 turns.

The remaining two PaK40s are on the Soviet’s left flank. As a T-70 is within range, they are forced to fire on it – and kill it  .

It’s a tense game tonight. Can I win from here? I’m denting Soviet armour much more heavily than in the previous game…

TURN 4: The Soviets successfully call down 122mm artillery on furthest PaK on the left flank. The other PaK40 sees a T-70 come within 400m of it, so they flee the gun and it’s out of the game. 9 Russian tanks now try to silence the furthest PaK40 and fail! In reply, they kill a KV1-E  . But then the shells from the artillery land into their trenches and they are lost  .

I have to Test Morale twice now. This is where games are usually lost for me. But I roll a 10 for the AT Gun crew and they are fine – I then roll another 10 for the remainders of my Company, and they are fine! Battle on!

TURN 5: The Soviets continue to advance  , racing forward as there seems to be no remaining German opposition.

TURN 6: The Soviets continue to push forward – remember, their objective is to Break Through my lines. The 122mm artillery is now called down upon one of my rifle platoons, but they are safe in their trenches.

TURN 7: It is clear that the Soviet exit point is too far from my rifle platoons with their AT Rifle Grenades  , so I declare the Soviets to have won. Peter shows me his map with the exit point on it and indeed he is safe and thus the winner.

REVIEW: It was a really tense game. I could see myself winning until halfway through turn 4. I thought I had placed my AT Guns well and they performed extremely well.

However, I chose to ignore Peter’s advice from the previous game about landmines – to my detriment. I really could have used them this time to plug some of the holes in my lines.

Big game last night…

Peter and I got around to replaying August’s game last night. There will be a proper report with photos, so keep checking in, but for now, just an entree….

A fourth PaK 40 on the table was a bit of a surprise for Pete, and the bigger surprise for us both was that my rolling to hit for them was markedly better than last time!

Russian recon forces really proved their worth this time, even if this time one of them had to bite the dust doing so.

Russian offboard artillery proved effective, but Russian offboard mortars were all drunken, useless bums whom I think Peter hopes are spending the next 5670 years in a Siberian gulag.

 

Panzer III platoon and some Krupp trucks

I finished my platoon of Revell Panzer IIIs. The lead vehicle (in the centre of the photos) is the Panzer III L kit, the rest are Panzer III M kits, identifiable by their exposed rear exhausts: .

I also finished two Krupp trucks – the ICM kit version, with the very-accurately-detailed but very-prone-to-breaking-even-while-on-the-sprue axles, exhaust pipes and other fine tubes: .They were joined by the first of the  same kit I assembled and painted some time ago.

After taking these photos and preparing to store these vehicles, I realised that these were the most weathered/dustiest vehicles I’ve done to date. Other trucks and tanks, even those meant to be from “Barbarossa”, are not as dusty as these. This means I’ll have to cut back on the weathering/dust application with other vehicles that are for “Barbarossa” (but not these makes & models).

If questions are asked, I’m going to explain it away as saying this platoon and the trucks were travelling together as a group down the dustiest road on the hottest day of that campaign.

Oh, you can also se a base of troops with those trucks. That is the first of two mortar platoon HQs. I haven’t started the second one as they are low priority.

PS. The next game Pete and I will play is going to be a re-run of our last game. We both enjoyed it very much.

3rd game for 2011 – set in Autumn 1942

2 weeks back Peter and I met for our third game of the year. The period was Autumn, 1942. The scenario was Breakthrough, with Peter’s Russians attacking (breaking through) my defending Germans. The sky was clear and there were light winds. Here’s the map: … a crossroads with hamlets and houses nearby.

No-one had any aerial forces, so we got straight into it.

Turn 1: The Russians call down a smoke barrage on the wrecked T-34 at the crossroads, neatly obscuring the vision of the PaK-40 I had dug-in behind it. Some recon forces came on to the table:  – T-34s were proxying T-70’s.

Turn 2: The T-70’s continued to probe forward: .

Turn 3: Now all the Russians came on to the table. T-34/76’s and KV-1’s. The smoke barrage was continuing: so my central PaK-40 couldn’t see them. They rumbled down the main road but also through the fields and trees beside it: – my PaK on the left flank found a T-34/76 going right into his bore-sighted path, so it fired and knocked it out of action .

Turn 4: The scouting T-70 on the far right sights the PaK-40 I placed over there. As the KV-1’s on that side break through the treeline, that PaK-40 knocks out a KV-1, which happened to be a Platoon Commander’s vehicle! Good! But over on the left, the T-34/76’s let rip with their hull MGs and my PaK-40 there is out of action. My mortar section try to rain death onto any tank riders, but their aim is off.

Turn 5: The Russians have to grind on if they are going to break through. One body of vehicles pushes past my dead PaK: .

Since I wanted to get my central PaK into action, we had a look at the rules about traversing infantry guns during a game. We were surprised to see some infantry guns could be fired whilst their crews were trying to shift them into new positions! We had to clarify the rules there and then for traversing mid-game: for a size B gun, the first 30 degrees of traversing is free…you can movie it and fire it without penalty. If you traverse it between 31-45 degrees from the original position, you can fire it but you suffer -2 penalty to hit. If you are trying to move the gun more than 45 degrees from it’s original  position you can do so but cannot fire it that turn.

So, back to the game; my right flanking PaK-40 hits a KV-1 and Stuns it, but is LMG’d to death by the rest of the KV-1 company. My mortars on the left flank wipe out a squad of tank riders through some accurate aiming. My infantry kill a few more. My remaining PaK-40 – the middle one, who was trying to traverse so that they could be useful – have to check Morale due to the losses of my other AT guns and fail, so they surrender to the Russkies.

Turn 6: Soviet movement is strong . They push hard and run over the dug-in Germans. All the Germans can  do is try to kill tank riders and weaken Russian morale. For the central force of Germans, their AT Rifles are useless against these medium tanks’ side armour so all that they can do by is pick off Russian infantry riding on the passing tanks. The Russians lose another squad as the Germans do so, but their Morale holds and the tank MGs cut down German infantry.

Turn 7: A lucky German infantryman kills the Soviet infantry company commander who’s riding on a tank: . The Russian Infantry check their Morale and are affected -they are now Shaken. But they are on the backs of tanks, so Shaken effectively means nothing for them. The Russians grind on to their breakthrough point and begin to exit the table  – they’ve won . My infantry are unable to stop them. Another victory to Peter.

~~~~~

It was also scenery-making night at the club that night. Here’s a mate making terrain for Stalingrad and the Eastern Front…burnt-down Russian hovels, where only the chimneys remain… .