Hobby Update 26 Mar 23

I am still making slow but steady progress through the lead hillock although again there has been a lot less actual gaming than I might have liked.  The old conconction of being busy with work (and just as importantly, feeling pretty lethargic when I have finished work), busy with family things and not really having easily accessible gaming spaces and gaming stuff have continued to defy my efforts.  But I have made a little progress in sorting that I hope, so I have a small stable of 'doable' games near my work space whilst everything else gets stored out of the way.

Anyway, first up is more WW2 Polish stuff: an infantry company (more-or-less), a couple of tank, tankette and armoured car platoons, and one anti-tank, artillery and anti-aircraft artillery battery.  These are a mixture of Heroics & Ros (most of the vehicles and guns) and Scotia (all the figures, plus one of the armoured car platoons and one of the tankette platoons).  Annoyingly H&R don't do any Polish gun crews for their Polish guns. Grrr.  In retrospect, I might have been better off using French WW2 gun crews than some spare Scotia Polish heavy weapons crews, they look a bit big. Oh well.

Two platoons of Polish tanks, in their rather nifty camouflage scheme.

The armoured cars and tankettes and tracked artillery tractors.

The Scotia infantry aren't as shapely as the GHQ stuff or as dynamic as Baccus or Adler or as 'correctly silhouetted' as H&R, but they are sort of okay - they are like an old-fashioned Minifig if you like, simple and easy to paint and not quite as reliant on nifty brushwork as some of the Irregular stuff.

H&R anti-tank guns (front), guns (middle) and Bofors AAA (rear)

Next up is a bit more British and German WW2 stuff: the British for early war, the Germans are a mixture.

H&R A13s (left) and A10s (right)

Ok, Panzerjaeger Is at the front, 21 Pz vehicles back-right(a 75mm anti-tank gun on a Somua chassis, a 150mm on a Lorraine and a converted French half-track carrier, I think); A StuG42 and two Hanomags with heavy weapons top-left - these are Scotia, IIRC...

The British have a few Morris armoured cars (centre) and some Beaverettes (right), the latter a common feature of 'what-if' Sealion 1940 scenarios, I am finding.

Next-up is a group of figures that I completed a little while ago, but don't think I have posted: 15mm Cold War Dutch from Battlefront:

The figures were nice enough.  I have done a couple of female head-swaps, using the Peter Pig female head pack.  They are a tiny bit small really but I think that they basically worked okay.  Finding the right colours wasn't as easy as it might have been, but blogger Jemima Fawr did some really brilliant posts on doing a Cold War Dutch Army in 15mm, highly highly recommended!

I have managed to get a figure game to the table but more of that later; otherwise I have been mainly plaing the Thirty Years' War board game Europe in Agony:

Previous experience has told me that you can't get enough 'practice runs' with a boardgame you intend on using as a campaign engine!  Also, actually playing solo and using it as a campaign engine will always require a few small changes to be made, but only familiarity with the game can help you judge the secondary effects of any changes.  But in any case, the game itself is full of interest and I have been learning a lot thinking about the challenges facing Wallenstein, Mansfeld, Tilly, Spinola et al.  Compared to the previous campaign board games I have used, it feels closest to the Gallic War in terms of how the game plays out.  Where this one is a little tricky is that the first couple of turns seem incredibly important in determining the likely flow of the game, since neither side has many troops and they start in pretty close proximity.

Hobby Update 03 Nov 22

I still haven't got many wargames in for one reason or another - although I did get to play a DBA game head-to-head for the first time yesterday! I really enjoyed it, although my abysmal combat dice rolling meant there was only going to be one result!!!  I have been playing some roleplaying games, specifically Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition (review here, adventure review here)

In any case, I have managed to get a few things painted up.  Some rather nice Stargrave figures:

There are a couple of conversions using some Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors at the back of this one

Apologies, some of this crew have darker skintones which rather blended into the background in this shot!!!

And another bunch of Skaven, which I have in mind for a very specific project next month:

A platoon of Battlefront "Team Yankee" West German infantry, plus some civilian vehicles from a 15mm 3D printing company.  Apologies, the name escapes me, but these were actually got at the JoS show this year(!)

And some limbers for my Heroics & Ros 6mm WW2 French artillery pieces:

In my last update I mentioned that I had been painting up a few figures for my 6-year old son.  I have finished these off now, a platoon of Warlord Waffen SS Grenadiers and a platoon of their British Paratroopers, along with their 'Ruined Building'.  I think that they turned out quite nicely despite my fairly duff painting - the bairn seemed quite pleased in any case.

And lastly, I got a few Soviet assault guns from 2d6 wargaming painted up, alongside a Baccus 6mm US Armored Infantry company's halftracks and extra bazookas and what-not.

I also went to the Other Partizan show a few weeks back. I didn't stay for too long, I developed a bit of a nasty headache quite early.  I didn't get much for me, although I did pick up some cheap Airfix kits being sold off for my son. I got a chance to say hello to a couple of people, including Steve Jones who was putting on a very nice-looking WW2 game and trying to sell me on the virtues of Fireball Foward, and I had a chance to have a quick chat to Henry Hyde for the first time, which was nice.  I didn't take many photos, but I thought I might share these of the TooFatLardies amazing Arnhem game - check out just how authentic all the buildings look:

The story of this game is on Henry Hyde's latest Battlechat podcast, for anyone who might be interested.

Looking forward, I am going to start a new job next week. This new job looks much busier than the last one, so I think that painting and paying time will be at a premium.  I mentioned in the last update that I was looking to organize things a bit better to make quick games more easy for me to do.  I have had a few failed experiments in that regard but I am going to give that another shot today!  It is important to me: my life is better when I get a game to the table each week or two, worse when I don't.

Hobby Update 01 August 2020

I have been adding to my 15mm Cold War Gone Hot forces recently, with some more models from Battlefront.  This time, it is the Brits!

A reduced Mechanized Infantry platoon (I have kept a few figures back for some conversions).

And an FV432, a Chieftain and a Scimitar

I am doing some renovating of some badly painted and slightly damaged 15mm WW2 Germans - a mixture of PSC, Peter Pig, Battlefront and QRF...

And the Mech Platoon finished off and based

Another shot

The Chieftain and the Scimitar

And the FV432 on the left

I really enjoyed making and painting these, although my painting doesn't really do them full justice.  But they will look nice enough at table distance.  I hope I won't be too long in getting them to the table, although these were done during breaks in dissertation writing, which may prevent much gaming over the next week or so.

I am not sure what will be next, but probably WW2 Soviets or 15mm Afrika Korps.  I was quite excited to see that Baccus are queing up their new releases, and 6mm Desert War would be a very strong temptation for me...

Skirmish in Germany: A Fire Fight Playthrough

Because this is the Heretical Gaming blog, it is part of the service to do the odd and the wrong.  In this case, to revive the 80s modern skirmish combat ruleset written by Bruce Rea-Taylor, Fire Fight.

 The ruleset is aimed at small-scale infantry actions from any conflict after WW2, so I set up a small Cold War Gone Hot scenario to get things going.

It is around 0930 in the morning after the Cold War has turned hot.  Soviet elements are moving rapidly forward.  A couple of Motor Rifle units moving forward have noted a small building astride a road on their battalion boundary - each have sent forward a reconnaissance patrol to discover whether it is occupied or not.

Soviet Forces:

1st Section (Initiative 3)
NCO w/AKM (Leadership 7)
1 NCO w/AKM (Leadership 3)
2 Ptes w/AKM
1 Pte w/RPG and Makarov
1 Pte w/RPK
1 Pte w/AKM & BG17


2nd Section (Initiative 2)
NCO w/AKM (Leadership 7)
1 NCO w/AKM (Leadership 3)
2 Ptes w/AKM
1 Pte w/RPG and Makarov
1 Pte w/RPK
1 Pte w/AKM & BG17

American Forces:

Squad (Initiative 4)
NCO w/M16 (Leadership 9)
1 NCO w/M16 (Leadership 5)
2 Ptes w/M16 & MAW
1 Pte w/M60
2 Ptes w/M16 & M203
3 Ptes w/M16
1 Humvee with .50Cal mounted

The US squad has put out a couple of pairs on watch, plus a sentry around the buildings watching the road.

The Set-Up:

A farm astride the road in the middle of some German woodland, between a few small hills

One of the OPs, surveying down from the hill

Most of the American squad is clustered around the Humvee; there is a sentry at the corner of the building (top-right); there is another two-man OP off-camera to the right.

One of the Soviet squads is entering from the top-right

And the other squad enters through the woods by the road

The Battle:

The first Soviet squad fails to spot the sentry or the pair on the hill (off-camera to the left); the sentry opens fire and kills the lead Soviet soldier

Try as he might, the Soviet sergeant cannot identify the source of the fire.

Other Soviet troops come up in support of their squad leader (in treeline)

Meanwhile, the second Soviet squad, hearing the fire, advances forward gingerly in the direction of the firing.

The sentry drops another Soviet!  The Soviets still cannot locate the sources of fire.  I didn't get an acceptable image of the next bit but the two-man team off to the left joined in, wounded the Soviet squad leader and that was it...

The remainder of the Soviet squad start running for safety

The second squad gets a bit closer - helped by the soldier bottom right trying to open fire...and getting a jam!

The M203 gunner (bottom) fires, places his grenade perfectly...and does precisely no damage; luckily for him, the return fire is equally ineffective

However, a combination of fire from four US soldiers drops the first two Soviet soldiers

The second Soviet squad feeling equally overmatched, runs back...

...and makes their escape

Game Notes:
Reasonably short and sweet game, but quite interesting nonetheless.   The Soviets were very unlucky, they just kept on failing their observation rolls! The American shooting was reasonably accurate too, so a pretty hard day at the office for the Sovs.
Whenever I have read these rules, I expected a total horror of a game, but they did work quite well in practice.  I am not going to definitively say that they work in a certain way, because there is a reasonably high chance I have misunderstood some key concepts, but as far as I know...
The main mechanic in the game is a chit pull for initiative.  Each squad gets a number of chits equal to its initiative and then they get pulled out of a cup one by one.  Then, leaders in the relevant squad can activate themselves and others to do stuff.  Each activated soldier gets 4 action points to "do stuff", including move, observe, fire etc.  Better leaders get to activate more soldiers in one go, although they do have to be quite close to the leader (within 25m or so, or lower if out of sight or being under effective fire).  There are some reasonably detailed observation rules (which is good), and they make visibility very important (better), but the rules feel a bit under-written and under-tested in some areas, particularly in how they interact with soldiers who are out-of-command.  The firing rules seem complicated, but that is because key information is spread out through the book - once you have worked out what is going on, it is pretty intuitive even if it is d20 based.  It has different levels of damage and ineffectiveness, with different game effects for wounded, suppressed and neutralized (other gamers might think of suppressed as what is often called 'pinned' and neutralized what is often called 'suppression').   It seems to have its genesis in WRG Infantry Action 1925-1975, but house-ruled, modified and chromed to produce a new set.  It still shares that rulesets assumption that players are really going to put stance markers by each figure to denote standing, crawling, neutralized and so on, which I find hard to believe that anyone has ever done, and still enjoyed the game.  Anyway, I don't want to get into proper review territory, so I will leave it there for the moment.

Figures and models are by Battlefront.