I have been given a few things from the late Mike Hobbs (I wrote more about Mike here) and the most noteworthy must be the 6mm collection of Rommel stuff that he was working on every now and then. The collection came with a number of painted items and some unpainted ones indicating that he had some further grand plans. However as we shall see there are more than adequate completed bases to have some grand games. Mike and a few friends had been playtesting the Rommel rules and had used some of these bases during that process.
Today I spent some time going through the boxes and organising the two sides – there are is German and a Russian army. They are based on 70mm by 50mm mdf bases and with a total more than 200 bases (a detailed breakdown is provided at the end of thus blog post) – each base being unique and telling its own story. I and a few others are planning to run some games with these and more than likely bring them to a show at some point next year, in 2024.
Anyway, here are some pictures from today’s inventory exercise (it is a mixture of Adler and Baccus WW2 infantry and Heroics and Ros and GHQ vehicles) – a wonderful collection.
Overview of the German BasedOverview of the Russian / Soviet bases
I also got Mike’s Rommel Rulebook with a dedication by Sam Mustafa,
This weekend I have been making some railway terrain to be used for gaming with these and for some other theatres. I used the tracks pieces from Leven Miniatures for this project (link here), they were brilliant.
Following on from the last blog post (ages ago, about the Japanese Platoon, here) please find an update on the project. The last few weeks has been spent making some Jungle terrain including recently – a river.
The first thing I did was to cut some pieces of river, I made these 6 inches wide in total, I used White Foamex Board 3mm thick, that is a fantastic material to work with, it is not that cheap but have wonderful non-warping properties compated to say MDF, at least in my experience. Note the additional border added (this is just abut 10mm cut out of the offcut on each side). Be careful here and make sure that each piece fits with the others. You can get 10 A2 boards for about £35 on ebay, I used two boards for the project so about £7.
I made enough for 8 feet (as we occassional might need a longer river). The 2 feet versions will become more fragile as they are a little bit wobbly and might not be strong enough unless you are careful – so worth considering. I went for the longer version. Cut down the sides.
I then added some filler on the outside of the borders.
I then added some sand on the inside of the border
Missed a few steps here, but in summary (i) Paint all of it in dark brown, (ii) paint the middle part with no sand in a greenish colour (this was done by mixing dark brown with yellow), add some highlights, (iii) drybrush the sand with a light brown (spill over a little bit on the green parts, (iv) add Herbs the Provance on the sides (cover with PVA and add the herbs), (v)add some foliage, I used some flock and some plastic jungle plants (let dry at appropriate points).
The final thing is to mix some clear resin and pour it over the boards (I used a clear low odour version from CFS, for this project but some brands can be really smelly), I cut a piece of foamex and applied it on each side with some hot glue, if you add a consistent bead of it on the side the leakage should be minimal but ensure it drops on something you are not precious about. I did a test piece before the big pour to make sure it all worked – and it did. I added some light brown paint in the resin to make it a little bit more interesting. I probably spent the equivalent of say £13 on resin for this project, meaning that the total cost of the river with the boards at £7 (with the cost of the other materials being negligible), so about £20 in total.
Alternatively you could just use a gloss varnish a few times over the boards, but will have a less striking effect.
Ended up with 8 feet of river.
Some of details look really good.
Next time we will look at some of the other jungle stuff built/made to date.
Good friend Des has taken an interest in the 1941-42 Dutch Far East Campaign and consequently so have I and whilst he is doing the less common Dutch (in the sense that we do not often see Dutch Forces on the table in European battles and perhaps even less common in the Far East ones) I will be doing some Japanese. This is a short blog just to introduce the platoon and I am more than sure there will be more detailed posts following this one. There are a few options but I narrowed it down to either Peter Pig or Skytrex as they both do really nice ranges that covers most if not all needs, I went with Skytrex on this occasion.
As for the Platoon I have used the Platoon as presented in the Too Fat Lardies Christmas Special 2015, available on their webpage. There is a Malaya 1942 campaign that looks excellent and gives you the basics of a Japanese platoon and a few special rules – these will do until the Chain of Command Far East supplement is released at some point in the future.
I primed them in chocolate brown and used Desert Yellow (vallejo) for the uniforms highlighted in various Desert Yellow/Iraqi Sand mixes (25% to 75%). The Helmet is Brown Violet (again Vallejo).
Platoon HQ – Senior and Junior Leader (yes I added a flagbearer that needs to get a flag)
Mortar Squad – 3 mortar teams (4 in each) with a Junior Leader
Next the first Rifle Squad – LMG team (4) and Rifle team (9)
Second Rifle Squad – LMG team (4) and Rifle team (9)
Third Rifle Squad – LMG team (4) and Rifle team (9)
I also did another Rifle Squad as a support options, as well as some MMG teams and Infantry Guns.
Next issue will be to find some vehicles… but that is for next time. Hope that was of some interest.
A few days before Christmas I was invited to speak on Sean Clark’s podcast Gods Own Scale, where I covered some thoughts and reflections from the year that just passed (link below the picture, if you want to check it out).
It is always great to catch-up with Sean and it is well worth checking up his back catalogue if you are not already familiar with it.
Anyway as a kind of complement I will do a quick overview of some of the things I did on the hobby front this year (mainly an organised listing of links to blogposts). As always in doing the review I realise that I have been doing far more than expected.
The sections are
More 3D printing
Commissioning some 6mm miniatures
Sweden 1943 Project 15mm
6mm Projects
The Battle of Lund 1676 6mm and the 6mm Charity Project
Terrain Projects
Fantasy Ice Hockey 28mm
Other Projects
An Awarding Year – Caesar Award (Wargaming Blog 2021) and Best in Show at Salute (6mm Poltava 1709
More 3D printing
I continued some exploration of 3D printing and came to the conclusion after a lot of printing that I should stop just printing and just keep things back until I intended to paint stuff, avoiding creating yet another mountain – this time in resin instead of lead. On the whole I really enjoy using the printer and the result it produced – it has not really reduced the amount of stuff I buy but has given me some options for doing alternative stuff. Here are few of the stuff I did do.
I printed a few ships and Max and I had a blast playing a few naval engagement with them.
I also got a battle mat from Geek Villain for naval engagement (or wide rivers).
Some really nice details in these 1/2400 scale shipsI also printed up a company of “Sturmis”, the Stug used by the Finns in WW2
I also commissioned some 6mm miniatures to be used as commanders for my GNW 6mm stuff. I did 5 minutures in total, the one below shows Stenbeck at Helsingborg in 1710.
More about that here and the other miniatures that I commissioned.
Further Progress was made on my Swedish 1943 Project and I added some more tanks and armoured cars (well trucks). I also did a high level army list for O Group, the new game from Too Fat Lardies.
The only big 6mm project I did start in the year was the Forces in Holstein 1700 as part of the start of the Great Northern War. This offers two very colourful opposing armies and the potential for a very interesting wargaming experience – in reality there were no big field battles, but this project offers some exploration of this.
I also bought some already painted 6mm ancients that I rebased and quickly got my 6mm Ancient Punic War collection substantially increased. I also did a summary blog on a lot of the #6mmtips I have shared on twitter over the last few years. More on these projects below.
The Battle of Lund 1676 6mm and the 6mm Charity Project
This year I took the Battle of Lund 1676 to the Virtual Joy of Six event, I ended up doing a video to present the game and also talked about the Charity Project that was completed last year. There are some links to two video that was produced to support these projects.
I did a lot of terrain projects this year most notably I did a lot of clutter, or immersion markers as I prefer to call them, for the 1943 table, but there are some generic ideas you could use for other theatres and scales. I also did a fair few buildings and fields.
These projects has allowed me to create some really immersive battlefields, like this one. Here a little video that Des Darkin did showing off the table laid out using many of the terrain elements produced this year (thanks Des).
I did some further work on my Fantasy Ice hockey project and we are developing some alternative rules to use. More on some conversions and some 3d printed models below.
I received two awards this year, the Caesar Award for the Blog of 2021 organised by Little Wars TV and also the Best Game in Show (Presidents Award) at Salute for the 6mm Poltava 1709 table.
Here a video made by Alex at Storm of Steel covering the show with an interview with Nick and I discussing the battle.
One of the scenarios I am envisaging for the “What if”German Invasion of Sweden 1943 project I am working on is a river crossing over the Dalecarlian River (Dalälven) – as it is such a central feature of the county.
Dalälven / Dalecarlia River
The high level plans for the two Campaigns I am working on.
I did some rubber boats earlier that you can find in the link ( German Infantry Platoon(s) for the What-if attack of Sweden in 1943 , this link also contains a high-level painting guide I used for the German in this this campaign) but wanted to support this with some boats with engines.
German Rubber boats from Skytrex Miniatures 15mm scale
The German army used the Leichtes Sturmboot 39 that were small high-powered assuault boats with by an 30 HP “Powered oar” outboard motor, they were used for river and small waterway assaults, crossings and to push pontoon boats. They were mainly used by Engineering typically to form a bridge head to build a pontoon bridge. Below is a small video showing them in use from Youtube.
I made a few improvised boats that I wrote about in an earlier blog for my Continuation War Finns.
Anyway the new ones are based on the actual boats and 3d printed. You can buy the files from 3D wargaming here. You can print out two versions one is an uncovered version (open boat, as can be seen in the video above) I believe the covered versions were used by the Marine. Well in my 1943 campaign they came from some marine units in Norway just before the invasion. I also have some uncovered ones that I will use to “redo” the Finnish ones I showed above. I asked Paul Edwards at Sabotag3d (https://www.sabotag3d.com/) to print them out in 1/100 or 15mm scale.
Picture from the 3D website, these are I suspect 28mm versions
As for the crew I used some Germans from the lead mountain – yes mine is substantial. For the “drivers” I used pointing NCO or artillery models and for the others a selection of different infantry types. As the models are close together pay attention to helmet size as they tend to vary between manufacturers and can look strange next to each other. I cut most of the bases off and also the feet or parts of the legs to make some interesting positions. In reality the were probably less obvious targets when crossing in them but I think you agree that it looks nice and dramatic in the pictures below.
I added a base to them and painted the boats in a dark and light grey, most pictures indicate this type of camouflage pattern being used. I tried to create some effect of water and some foam by painting the bases dark blue, the drybrushed with a medium blue before adding some vallejo Atlantic water effet, finally I paintes some white to represent the foam. Here are the finalised pieces, I am really happy with them.
During the hostilities of WW2 the Royal Swedish Army was undergoing a number of changes and the most significant at the Platoon level was the 43M reorganisation. This organisation was ordered for the Army in 1940. The objective was that all units would have completed this reorganization by 1943. This re-organisation introduced more fire power to the Rifle Section by equipping the NCOs with SMGs and adding 2 No. Semi-Automatic rifles to each section. Further firepower was also provided by the introduction of a fifth Specialist Section with a 47mm Mortar team and an Anti-tank rifleman to each Platoon. In addition, a rifleman per section was a designated Sharpshooter and had a scoped rifle.
These lists allow you to field a normal Rifle Platoon (Skyttepluton) or a Ranger Platoon (Jägarpluton). The latter was more than often used to do specific recon missions and to distress the enemy.
These platoons would most often march onto to the battlefield, with a platoon cart and a horse. Some platoons may be equipped with bikes and some may even be driven to the battlefield in a truck.
The changes were gradual, and we suggest that the player can choose to play either the 1940 to 1943 or the 1943 to 1945 Rifle Platoon for the 1943 campaign.
You can download the latest lists in a PDF format below (they are work in progress, if you have any views or suggestions let me now).
It has been a little bit of a strange year with a lot of pressures making it difficult to devote as much time as I would like to the hobby – but in retrospect and upon reflection I seem to have been doing a lot more than I thought. I had lots of fun with the hobby and that is what it is there for!
This is a summary blog of the year and contain some additional pictures not covered in any published blogs. I hope you will find this review interesting. I take my hat off for all of you who engage with the blog directly, follow the roll a one page on faceboook (Roll a One, @rollaonepage) or the Per at RollaOne feed on twitter – It really matters to me – so thank you very much. I had as an unwritten rule to do a blog every week, this year I have managed to do 41 blog posts – so I failed the objective but I am happy with that. I could easily have dragged this one out over a few blogs with the extra material but wanted to make a long one of this last one.
This is my Twitter Feed and probably the best place to follow the going-ons!
The most popular blog post this year was this one detailing how you can enhance your 6mm, or any scale, pictures using your computer screen. Bleeding obvious to me but a lot of people have found it useful!
This blog post has a lot of pictures and links (these are the underlined sections, they lead directly to the blog post I am talking about) and basically covers:
Poltava 1709 and Joy of Six 2019
Battle of Lund 1676 project
Gaming with the Little One and a book from Henry Hyde
WW2 What-if Invasion of Sweden in 1943 and roundpole fences
The Mutant 1984 Project and our Christmas Mutant Dinosaur Hunt
Being on Podcasts and some other stuff
Poltava 1709 at Joy of Six 2019
This was the culmination of a three year project covering the Russian Campaign of the Great Northern War and this year I presented Poltava 1709 at Joy of Six show in Sheffield. This has been a fantastic project and this 16 by 5 feet table actually made me somewhat emotional when I first put it up on the Show (but then each one is pretty special at the time). I did plenty of blog posts about the project this year, you can find them below. We will put up the table again in 2020 at Salute in April. This project was done using 6mm Baccus miniatures.
Overview of Poltava, the Monastery and the Swedish Camp
Overview of the Redoubts and field outside the Russian Camp
Detail of the Swedish Camp
I was really happy with the Poltava model
Here are some of the blog-posts covering this topic ( The last few are the finished article the others about how various elements were done).
My next bigger 6mm project is the Battle of Lund in 1676. This is one of the most famous battles of the Scanian Wars. I am doing this using the fantastic Wars of the Sun King range by Baccus 6mm.
Rauch’s Geworbne Cavalry Regiment
Prince Georg’s Regiment – a Danish regiment looking more Swedish than meatballs!
Gaming with the Little One and a book from Henry Hyde
I have had immense pleasure in engaging with the Little One yet again this year in painting, playing games and going to a few events together. He even wrote a review of the Airfix Battles Rules and about his day at Salute on the Blog. When I asked him about the highlights this year he told me that it was the book he was sent by Henry Hyde, the day we had playing Mike Whitaker’s Omaha game and doing the Star Wars Legion miniatures (more in the links at the end of this section).
The Little One and I met Henry Hyde at Salute (who of course wrote the Wargames Compendium, was the editor for Miniature Wargames & Battlegames and now runs the Battlegames Patreon Site that I am a supporter of, see link here https://battlegames.co.uk/patreon-supporters/ . Please check it out as there is a lot of good stuff there in terms of podcasts, videos and articles – whether you are a supporter or not).
On the way back Max realised that the Henry we had met was the same guy that had written the Wargames Compendium, a book he really loves, and said that he should have asked for an autograph. I mentioned this to Henry and a few days later, to our great surprise and delight, a parcel arrived with a letter and a book.
It is was an enormously generous gesture and one of those moments I think the Little One will carry with him for his whole life – many thanks Henry! The Little One then read the Featherstone book and wrote a letter he sent to Henry that made me really proud.
Dear Henry,
Many thanks for sending me the Donald Featherstone book, it was very kind of you and it made me feel very special. I like the words you wrote and I will keep this book forever. It has taken me some time to finish the book as I have had a few other things going on.
I enjoyed the introduction where he writes about ‘what wargaming is’ and also the overview of the different periods for wargaming – my favourite period is WW2. You have so many different aspects of things going on – on land, in the air, on and under the water and you are not sitting around in a trench for four years as in the Great War. At the very end of the book he writes something I really liked! “General Sherman, of American Civil War fame, is quoted as saying, ‘War is Hell’. So it is, and perhaps the wargamer, seeing just how helpless his little plastic figures are against the dice simulated effects of cannon and muskets, will appreciate more than ever the utter futility of real war.”
I also have a copy of your book, The Wargaming Compendium, and I think it is the best book a wargamer can get as it covers everything you need to know. In particular I like the chapter on understanding sizes, scales and chance. I love the picture on page 17 showing the different scales.
I hear you are writing another one and I hope it is going really well!
I know you like the Horse and Musket period so I thought you might like this Kings Carabineer from the Battle of Blenheim 1704 and a book about the Battle of Poltava.
WW2 What-if Invasion of Sweden in 1943 and roundpole fences
Some further works was done for the 1943 German invasion forces and defending Swedes. Making some transports for the Swedes with some tanks (including conversions) and a large number of German soldiers and vehicles. I also updated the Chain of Command list for the Swedes. More in the blog posts below (that is also including a note on the visit I did to Dulwich playing Chain of Command at the Warlords Lardy Day – thanks Iain!).
One of the best things that happened to this project this year was the roundpole fences developed by Paul Edwards (@Amaz_ed on Twitter if you want to contact him, or let me know and I will pass it on) that will enable me to give that special feel of gaming in Scandinavia/Nordic much in the same way as Snake Rail fencing indicate a wargame in North America.
How is this relevant to you if you do not play anything in Norway, Finland, Sweden or Estonia (where these fences are common) – well according to some theories they were in use during Viking times so if you are doing Dark Age wargaming (or Colonials as we Norse call it). So if you want to create that little Norse settlement in your Saga game or some other game including some Vikings and want to make it feel a little bit special than maybe this beautiful fencing will be an idea.
I asked Paul if he could help me out and quicker than I could say Gärdsgård – the name of the fence in Swedish – I now have 4-5 meters of it and I hope you agree it looks good.
A Mechanised Platoon is getting into position to defend against advancing Germans in 1943 (the KP-bil, was not taken into service until 1944 as the initial batch was rejected due to the weak armour plating – in this what if whatever was available was pressed into service – as they look too cool to not be part of this project).
Some tanks in support!
Troops embarking and jumping over the roundpole fences – it does not get more Swedish than this!
Tysken Kommer! (The German is coming!)
Granatkastargrupp i Position, skjut mot skogsdungen! (Mortargroup in position, fire against the trees!)
Target Spotted! Get ready to Fire!
The ones I have has been made for 15mm but Paul can make some in 6mm and 28mm too.
These are the ones I will be using for my Scanian War project.
These are a few in 28mm with some Mutant 1984 characters.
Paul also does some gate options.
I have also found a reasonable Vallejo mix for Falu Rödfärg.
50/50 of Bloody Red and Burnt Cadmium Red…
…gives that dark red old style colour that was more common around 1943 than the brighter red colour being popular today…
I think if works really well….
Beautiful design by Paul Edwards
Here are some postings for the Swedish WW2 project (as in all my posts there is plenty of pictures in each of them). The next step is to produce two half-sized campaign for Chain of Command (or any other Platoon based set of rules).
In addition we had a special Xmas game this year based on a vote we did on Twitter where the Mutant 1984 Dinosaur won the Day (beating Winter War, Swedish invasion 1943 and a “proper” GNW battle!). We used a variant of the The Men who Would be King rules (the same as in the Border Skirmish above) and it was a fun game with two factions of soldiers and hunters trying to take out as many Monsters as possible (2 Dinosaurs, a Giant Beetle, a Four armed Gorilla, 2 Swedish Tigers, a Dark Young of Stubb-Nigarakan) whilst fighting each other. I did not do a write-up but instead I have included a bunch of pictures from the game.
The Swedish (Sabre Tooth) Tigers are based on the Swedish Wartime information Poster stating “En Svensk Tiger” that means both “a Swedish Tiger” and “a Swede Shuts-Up”.
Being on Podcasts and some other stuff
Any regular reader of this blog will know that I have a few wargaming podcasts that I like to listen to whilst I paint and model – these are in no particular order the Veteran Wargamer, The Lardy Oddcast, Meeples and Miniatures, Havoc Cast Podcast, Wargames Soldiers and Strategy, Wargames Recon, Henry Hyde’s Battlechats and God’s Own Scale Podcast. They are all excellent and whilst I occasionally listen to others, those are my solid ones I will try to listen to every time (I listen to a fair few more non-wargaming stuff like the eminent Grognards RPG Files and We have ways and Audible books).
This year I have been humbled by having been asked to come on three of these shows and talk about stuff mainly relating to the 6mm work I have been doing, but also about wargaming with children and my great passion – the Great Northern War.
A few weeks ago Neil Shuck announced that he will stop the Meeples and Miniatures podcast as he has reflected on the time it takes to do the show and other priorities like gaming with friends etc. Meeples and Miniatures has, in my opinion, become like a wargaming (and Meeples) institution and its legacy is enormous and Neil and the other presenters (Mike, Mike, Dave, Rich and all the guest presenters) should be enormously proud of having created this. I felt so honoured to be asked to attend the show and had a blast – so much that it was enough to fill two episodes (sorry!, but thanks Neil and Mike for having me).
When I listened to Sean Clarke’s episode 0 and he declared that one of his inspirations to starting his blog (focusing on 6mm an history) was the work I have been doing with this blog – it made that and many days last year. I contacted him and asked if I could come and talk to him and we had a great time talking about the 6mm stuff I have been doing but also getting an idea of Sean Clarke’s upcoming WW1 project for Joy of Six in 2020. This is another excellent show and I really like all the episodes to date with many friends from the 6mm trenches. The show with Robert Dunlop (No 3.) is one of the best Podcasts I heard last year. Thanks Sean for my second outing this year – I had an absolute blast.
Henry’s Battlechat has very quickly built up an impressive catalogue of podcasts with a wide range of guests from the industry, rules designers, miniatures producers, artists, book publishers, academics, etc. I have stolen parts of Henry’s intro for this:
“Per is a wonderful ambassador of the hobby, friendly, approachable, intelligent and with a dry sense of humour that you might only notice when you’re halfway out of the door after meeting him! (Watch out for his comment about the Dark Ages being “Scandinavian colonial”!) Here, then, is this Swedish superstar of the hobby in full flow, waxing lyrical about 6mm gaming, the Great Northern War and other Scandinavian conflicts of the 17th and 18th centuries, making snow-covered terrain and the joys of being a wargaming parent.”
Finally I would like to say that my favourite wargaming thing this year was the visit I did to Evesham and OML7 (Operation Market Larden No. 7) – Thanks to Ade et al for this. I met so many nice people and had a fantastic time playing some great games.
80 years ago Finland was fighting for its independence against Soviet Union in what has become known as the Winter War. The war has a personal connection to me as the family on my mother’s side is Finnish. We have therefore fought a few battles using the Chain of Command rules to honour and remember the people on both sides who fought and died in this war.
The war started with a Soviet Invasion of Finland without a declaration of war on the 30th November 1939, the war ended 105 days later on 13th March 1940. More than 25,000 Finnish died and many were wounded. At the end of the War Finland was still an independent state but had lost about 10% of its territory and 12% of the population lost their homes and where re-settled. The Soviet Union’s losses were far higher and somewhere in the order of 150,000. The campaign was badly planned and conducted by the Soviets and the Finns fought bravely and with great skill.
Here are few pictures from one of these battles, somewhere along a country road…
On Saturday the Little One and I had a real treat as we were invited to Mike Whittaker’s Mill Studios (@TaTM_blog on twitter) to play the eminent Omaha Beach game that we had missed to play at Salute this year (see link here). The Little One, Andy (who built the terrain but never played the scenario) and I played the American Side, we were being skillfully empired by Mike who also played the Germans. We
The scenario is from the excellent IABSM scenario book called “Where have you been boys” and can be bought from the Too Fat Lardies website here.
21 Scenarios for £7.80 – that is a good deal! Whether you are using IABSM or not it is an excellent source and contains a lot of varied scenarios.
This is scenario Six and in the book and promises “The game will be nasty, bloody and gritty, it shouldn’t be anything else”. It takes place at the eastern end of Omaha beach (Colleville-Sur-Mer) and involves the US 1st Infantry Division – the Big Red One. This is very much the scenes from Saving Private Ryan stuff. The scenario shows the difficulties on the day and for this kind of operation in general. The Germans have relative little Firepower but are in very good protected position whilst the Americans are mainly in the open up to the shingles of the beach, then protected by the cliffs before having to be in the open again trying to get through the wires and mine fields.
The US forces, just like on the day come in waves, and basically first wave took a lot of damage, so did the second but managed to clear some wires and take out some of the nests form a distance, then the final and third wave started to turn the balance. It was a different wargame in that most of the time, from our American side, was spent hoping that the next barrage of artillery, HE guns, sniper fire and MG would not wipe the whole section out and that some of the men who survive and get to the shingles and momentarily be safe. The two Sherman tanks who had made it to the beach did provide some initial fire power but they were soon taken out. It was very sobering and certainly kept to the promise in the scenario book, as it was indeed “nasty, bloody and gritty” and leaves you with a lot of reflection on the terrors facing the men on that day. We had to leave just as the third wave had arrived, but at this time it looked like the first part of the job was done, at least on the side of the beach I was not responsible for (luckily Andy and the Little One had cleared a lot of wire on their side of the board).
Mike had added a few features like General Norman “Dutch” Cota, coming as part of the second wave, who was useful in rallying and getting some moving on where needed and also Robert Capa who took some iconic photos.
The Famous Capa Photo
The one take during the game (actually when leaving rather than arriving) – taken by Mike
A few other memorable moments was the first shot from the Sherman leading to one of the guns in the bunker getting out of action and the off–table German 88 being taken out by some Royal Navy guns very early. In addition the effect of artillery and the way it works is really effectful and realistic (as is the use of HE weapons) leading to units becoming pinned and stopped in their tracks – not based on casualties in itself – I really like this (keeping your head down). Some of my units arrived without leaders and it was difficult to get these men up to beach to do their job – the unit with the leaders fared better but I was let down by some bad dice rolling (rolling ones, who would have believed that!).
What follows are a lot of pictures from the day. I believe that Mike will be doing a write up of his thoughts from having played the scenario a number of times in the upcoming Lard Magazine that will be out later in the year.
All the miniatures were from Battlefront!, except for a few Peter Pig casualty markers.
As for the Little One and I? I think we both would be tempted to do something similar perhaps in 6mm?, one day!
It was a great day indeed, thanks for having us Mike.
Prepping with Chocolate and an Osprey
Preparation is everything
The calm before the storm, just a few engineers on the beach.
Initial rolls for what is coming and a where? – will the boats come with medic of big men, will they arrive in time and will they have taken casualties and in which sector will they arrive?
Two tanks had made it to the beach!
Mike had a very effective and clever management system for getting the waves organised
First boats incoming, one taking damage.
First shot of the Game a Sherman knocking out one of the Bunker guns.
One of the first wave boats deploys
Robert Capa being onboard
One of the Shermans quickly gets take out of action
More boats arrive
Movements then starts up the beach – slow and deadly!
The Germans have easy targets
It is a long way to go
Some of the teams manage to get to the shingles relatively early – safety can be found here for a while.
Engineers getting up the slopes trying to get rid of the Wires
Mike doing some Capa shots!
General Cota is inspiring the men but a lot of kills and pins are being delivered by the German continuous firing!
Build up on the beach!
Artillery was scaring and kept pinning and draining men!
They are not having rest Corporal!
Some early wires being dealt with!
Guess who!
Constantly pinned down – it was difficult to get forward.
A bazooka team is getting closer with the objective of taking out the other bunker with the Gun (eventually they would be successful).
At this point we had to leave, we had been playing from around 10am to 6pm, with a break for Lunch. Finally we had broken through the wire in Section 3 and the third way were just starting to come in.
I based the two German Platoons I made last week for the Swedish 1943 Tourist Season (this being the What-if German Invasion of Sweden in 1943) on Sunday evening. These are the Skytrex 15mm ones that form part of the first part of the Campaign – the Northern Approach through Dalecarlia. This part of the Campaign will be infantry vs infantry with limited options for heavier support (perhaps an armoured car for the Germans, etc). I have a few ideas that I think will work well in a setting like this. Anyway here they are:
Focus of the two Planned Campaigns
On Saturday I was invited to play a game of Chain of Command in Dulwich by Iain Fuller. This was one of the South London Warlords Saturday game days – they run these on the second Saturday every month – on this occasion a few Too Fat Lardies games were played. It was a really good game and although I lost I had the best of times. It was tense and hang in the balance more than once, more than a few bad rolls but then again a few good ones too. Chain of Command is a very enjoyable game! Below a few pictures from the day. it was nice to meet up with Iain Fuller and his chums, seeing Dave Brown again and having a chat with Rich Clarke. I may have a solution for playtesting the Swedish Campaign stuff thanks to Iain and Des – I will get back to you shortly.
The table for the Day – I and Iain were playing the Germans – we had a Panzergrenadier Platoon with three squads with 2 No. MG-42 each, we also had a Panzershrek team and Tripod MG-42 team as well as a Pz IV tank. We played against Dan and Glenn who had an American Platoon and a Sherman tank for Support. We were defending.
The Americans quickly got a squad into the forest threatening the defensive position. A squad of Germans were sitting on the first floor with their LMGs aimed at the forest – a dash would be daring and deadly.
Then came the tank
The MMG was set up in one of the houses covering the approach road.
All the Germans deployed in buildings at this moment
The Americans sent out a scout platoon provoking an activation of another squad.
A fierce fire fight broke out between two sections over the field.
In spite of overwhelming fire power the rolls did not favour the Germans this time and they ended up withdrawing to the forest to recover some Shock.
Glenn rolled really well at times! 5 and 6 to hit!
I rolled less well!
My favourite moments was the Pz IV shot…
….that made the Sherman smoke
What is superior firepower worth when you roll like this?
Americans advancing down the road towards the objective of their success.
Overwhelmed, unlucky the Germans slowly weakend!
Seconds before the Americans overran the Jump Off point and ended the turn! – game over.
This contains an updated file to that one presented in a previous blog post (see here), some corrections and information for both Rifle Platoon (Skyttepluton) and Ranger Platoon (Jägarpluton).
POST NOTE: The Mortar team in the support option states 3 crew, it should be a crew of 2. Also the KP-bil was not equipped with a MG during the WW2 era, so is probably more a list One or Two option.
During the hostilities of WW2 the Royal Swedish Army was undergoing a lot of changes and the most significant at the Platoon level was the change introduced in 1943 (the so called 43M organisation). This introduced more power for the Rifle Platoon by equipping the NCOs with SMGs, adding 2 No. Semi-Automatic rifles to each section. Further firepower was also provided by the introduction of a fifth specialist team with a 47mm Mortar Section and an Anti-tank rifleman to each Platoon. In addition a rifleman per section was a designated Sharpshooter and had a scoped rifle.
These changes were gradual and we suggest that the player can choose to play either the 1940 to 1943 or the 1943 to 1945 Rifle Platoon for the 1943 campaign. As an example the number of sub-machine guns and semi-automatic rifles would be aspirational in 1943.
These list allows you to field a normal Rifle Platoon (Skyttepluton) or a Ranger Platoon (Jägarpluton). The latter was more than often be used to do specific recon missions and to distress the enemy. These platoons would most often march onto to the battlefield, with a platoon cart and a horse. Some platoons may be equipped with bikes and some may even be driven to the battlefield in a truck.
Some may even have been riding in the KP-bil (see more here)
Hope they are of some use, the file can be downloaded here.
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