JANUARY GAMES DAY

                         

This Sunday saw the first games day of 2016 for the Wyre Forest Gamers. There were a number of games that were played between the members including: League of Augsburg (ECW variant), 28mm Hail Caesar ancients, 15mm FOG ancients, 28mm French and Indian wars, 28mm chain of command WW2 and a 20mm WW2 scenario featuring my very own Germans using the Battle Group rules (with a few tweaks), including blinds.

The battle was fought in the fictional village of L'Escargot, and saw the Americans attempt to secure a hill and a building that contained some art that needed recovering. The Germans naturally were the defenders of the village, but had no idea where the stash was hidden. It would appear that the small building at the far corner of the table was a contender, as this seemed to draw little artillery fire even after one of our blinds turned out to be a king tiger parked outside.

Artillery was a sore subject as this was only allowed to the attacking American forces and kept many of the German units pinned early on. Victory conditions for the US were (1) capture and hold the designated hill, (2) occupy the unknown building containing stash or (3) get 3 pieces of armour through the village and off the other end of the road.

 

Victory points for the Germans was simple…… STOP THEM.

Early on in the game a very plucky sole Stuart tank advanced into the centre of the village and earned the name Lucky. Escaping fire from anti tank weapons and even dicing with a Panzer IV and winning with a penetrating shot through its side armour with his pea shooter. He was quickly subdued in the next phase of shooting.

The remainder of the game saw exchanges of US Artillery and German Mortars, but the Americans suffered heavily once they breached the first set of hedge rows and were decimated by a combination of Panther, King Tiger and Panzer Faust and Shreks.

Great bunch of guys and some very interesting layouts.

Roll on February Napoleonics me thinks ????

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM

Finally found a group of gamers that meet on a day that fits in with my schedule. Wyre Forest Gamers are a group of like minded wargames and military history enthusiasts. Had a cracking Sunday afternoon playing as a squad of grunts looking for Charlie.

Playing by the BODY COUNT rule set the game was set over two large tables with the space in between representing the river, a number of squads landed on designated landing zones across both tables and continued to sweep the area looking for enemy. Only the game controller new the precise location type and strength of all enemy forces including booby traps, tunnels and nests etc.

The game involved a bit of role play, and after each movement phase we were allowed to record comms. mesages out of earshot of the rest, which when played back to the rest of the squads (sometimes to the sound of gunfire) allowed a sense of unknown realism as to what the other squads were encountering.

Yours truly (call sign Tree Hugger ) was requested to move to support another squad while they investigated a tunnel entrance. Unsure what would be in front of me I decided to call in an artillery probing round on the East river bank. Near bang on target caused a load of NVA to run straight toward me, taking 1 casualty and 2 wounded we dropped smoke and hit the deck. The squad I was supporting returned fire forcing the enemy back into the smoke to an impending full barage following the positive hit from the spotting round. What can be seen above is the resulting smoke screen far left. As my squad retreat to a medi vac location while being supported by a further 2 squads. Enemy unit strength was still unseen at this point as they are on the far left of the smoke screen. We never got to know either as shortly after the barrage followed and the Navy gun boats came up river and toasted the river bank with flame throwers.

Looking forward to lots of WWII and Napoleonics, may even dust off the Warhammer units.

Ambush

Finally got round to finishing the Waffen SS unit, I have had these put to one side for a while but with this weeks Autumn colours on the trees I felt inspired to paint the cammo, these are a few of the unit the pea dot and oak leaf was fun to paint.

Oak leaf cam was a dark tan base washed heavily with 1:1 brown ink and water. Patches of black with patches of Val.German Bright Green inside. And random small patches of Val. German Cam Dark Green.Some of the dark green spots then had light green added to the inside.

The pea dot pattern was achieved by base coating with Val. English Uniform. Patches of Black (should be dark green but at this scale you can hardly notice). Then patches of Pale brown next to these at random intervals. Then with a tooth pick all the black patches get pale brown dots, all the pale brown patches get black dots. Last finishing touches are random dots of medium green and a very yellow green. At one stage I added straight yellow dots.

Hard to imagine that I am colour blind, my son and wife help to identify the colours required initially.



Hope you like.

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A second 88mm Flak from Zvezda also got some paint. This like its predecessor has been magnetised, allowing for a planned project this week involving the panzer IV, Marder and Panther Chasis.