Capturing a Fort

 Last weekend, I went to a large game of Dux Brittania. The scenario was that the Saxons were attempting to capture a British fort. There were three Saxon players (I was one of them) and two British players. Each player had two leaders with two units, and one bow unit. One of the four units was elite, which for the Saxons, proved to be decisive.

The Saxon plan was to have one player threaten the gate while the other Saxon player and myself aimed for the opposite corner. In the pic, we're quite a bit into the game. Up until previous turn, things were not looking good for the Saxons. Instead of moving quickly, the ladder carrying units had been a bit leisurely. This allowed the British players to get into position to defend the walls. Additionally, the warriors assigned to batter the front gate got decimated by arrows and the warriors defending the walls hurled stones and other objects inflicting shock.

Then the dice turned. The elite Saxons managed to throw up a ladder and get a foothold at the top corner. Down in the lower corner, a fortunate volley of arrows opened up gaps in the defending British and four ladders of Saxons proceeded to fill those gaps. I had the three ladders at the very bottom of the picture.

 After the initial storming, the Saxons then wiped out the defending Britons on the wall. It was a case of better troops overwhelming the ordinary.

With the original wall defenders wiped out, the Britons ran or surrendered.

What A Cowboy!

 Wow, it's been a while since I last posted. I'll have a follow-up post in a bit to explain why, but let's say that I haven't touched the Zulus or even gamed since my last post.

However, that changed recently as Stephen held a gaming day at his house. 

We played What A Cowboy with 3 players a side controlling 2 characters each, a gunslinger and a shootist. My gunslinger I named William Kidd ("Don't you dare call me 'Billy'") and he had lightning reflexes. My shootist was a native who I named Johnny Whitefeather. As I rolled poorly for money, I equipped both of them with a single 6 shooter each.

The scenario was that one side were Mexicans who gained control of one side of town. I was on the other side with the objective of forcing the Mexicans to leave town.

Mid game with a view from the Mexican side. The dance hall is on the upper right and the church yard is on the lower right.

The game started out a bit slow with both sides being a bit cautious. Early on, the Mexicans took a commanding presence in the centre of town. Then Stephen's Mexicans had a brief foray into the dance hall, which ended badly for his Mexican shootist. 

I had the centre right, but I decided that a headlong charge against 2 Mexicans in the grey Cantina and 1 Mexican in the building next door was not a good idea, so eventually my two characters went to the right to try their luck against Richard's Mexicans in the church yard.

Richard's two cowboys are guarding the church yard entrances. Note where the stage coach is.

Richard's gunslinger went on the attack and charged. He rolled poorly, and was stuck in the middle of the road. It got worse, as the gunslinger was then run over by a stage coach. Johnny Whitefeather went on the attack while the gunslinger recovered. 

Richard's two characters fall back to the yard walls. Johnny Whitefeather dodges the coach and reaches the corner.

After several rounds of ineffective gunfire and brawling (and interrupted by rampaging Indians), Johnny found his aim and gunned down Richard's gunslinger and shootist.

Blam! Blam! David's gunfighter looks on, before taking out rampaging Indians emerging from the church yard.

While that was happening, on the other side of town, things were going badly for our side as Justin's two characters were eliminated. This left the two sides dead even in characters and skill, so we called it a draw.

It was an enjoyable day. We were hoping to get in some other gaming, but we ran out of time.

 

Fencing, Again (Part 2)

 Continuing my project from last time, I completed all of the brush between the fence. I then spray primed it grey followed by a brown wash everywhere. This is what the fences looked like at this stage:

I loosely painted a warm grey and then semi-dry brushed white over top. Not really dry but more of a sloppy waving of the brush over the very top surfaces. I followed this up with a black ink wash. As a final step, I painted the base brown and used the same colour to give the brush a little tint so that they would stand out a bit from the rails.

I'm really happy with how I managed to age the wood and get the appearance of grain. The extra time spent carving up the sticks paid off so that they just don't too manufactured.

Because enclosures should have gates so that farmers can enter their fields, I made a couple:

That's 6 feet of fences. I really should have doubled this project but I can make more.

Fencing, Again (Part 1)

 With some free time, I'm getting back into miniatures. I've decided to make some fences. Specifically, I'm basing them on the fences that you see here:

(If you own the picture, please let me know and I will replace the picture with a link to your site. I tried to go to the site watermarked in the photo but there's no easy way to find this image.)

So my plan is to create a set of vertical posts with double sets of dowels between them. Then I will use wire to simulate the thin sticks between them.

I started with 12 popsicle sticks and drilled three holes in each. Should you be interested, I'm enjoying a Thornbury Dam dark lager.

Then I glued the horizontal beams on both sides. 

Finally, I laid down a bead of PVA and cut some bristles from an old paint brush (thanks Gerry!). I inserted the bristles between the beams to recreate the thin branches that were used to fill in between the posts.

I've just done the one half to see how it turns out.

Russian cottage from 4Ground

Having posted about the relative flatness of the Ukrainian house roof compared to the glorious furriness of the Russian cottage, I realized that I did not post any pictures of it. Here it is in all of its hairy glory:

And here's a pic of the inside.

I do have a couple things to note:

Pro tip #1: Don't just glue the chimney onto the fur and hope it stays in place. Actually make a hole in the fur to glue it solidly onto the MDF. Mine isn't going anywhere but it's not as flat as I would like. I'm not sure but I think the instructions called for cutting a hole and I ignored them. Sigh.

Pro tip #2: While it is nice to break up the flatness of MDF, glue the shutters back against the wall instead of having them stick out at a jaunty angle. They will be much more durable that way.

Ukrainian house from 4Ground

I assembled this house a while back but haven't gotten around to posting about it until now. As with other 4Ground kits, it assembles nicely as long as you dry fit everything first and you follow the instructions.

These kits come with nice details inside and out. The shutters and the cracked plaster on the outside are a nice touch to add a bit of dimension.

But after the lushness of the fur thatch on the Russian house that I have, the absolute flatness of the roof is a bit disappointing. I guess I could add some really thin card over some of the scored planks and add some paint, but that's pretty far down the priority list. It still looks very good on the table.

Comparison between MMG teams

So now I have a German MMG team from Warlord and one from BTD. Let's compare them.

The Warlord one is on the left and the BTD on the right. The most immediate difference between the two is the tripod mount. The BTD one is thick and heavy. This gives it some welcome sturdiness. It also makes it way over-scaled. The other problem is that the stand looks very two dimensional.

The Warlord stand is far more accurate in scale. It also spreads out in three dimensions. But it wasn't easy to get there. The legs come flat and there were no instructions. Fortunately, I found a picture of the entire stand. So it was a matter of delicately twisting and bending the legs until they were the right shape and fit with the gunner. Of course, this meant that a stand was an absolute necessity.

The figures themselves are similar in size and chunkiness. The Warlords are a little more impressionistic while the BTD are firmer in detail. The difference shows up more when you are actually painting them. You have to use your imagination more for the Warlord ones while the highly raise details on the BTD make them easier pop them.

Overall, I generally prefer BTD figures but the Warlord ones blend in pretty easily and nicely supplement the gaps I had in my troops.

Support Options for the Germans (Part 3)

The Germans get some long range AT support:

These figures are actually Warlord 75mm gun and crew.

I find the Warlord and BTD figures to blend rather nicely. The BTD figures have more raised detail and slightly better sculpting (IMHO) that make them easier to paint but when painted, it is hard to tell them apart. I think the figure in the background with binoculars is BTD but I'm not sure.

Here's the front view:

Support Options for the Germans (Part 2)

Here's some additional support options. I have two Panzershrek teams (previously photo'd but this picture is much better.

Here's three pictures of the sniper figure:

Support Options for the Germans (Part 1)

Yesterday, I posted the main platoon but that is only half of the figures that I have painted. Here are some of the support options that I have done.

First up, some engineers with some engineery equipment.

The backside show off their labels

 Next, a couple of LMG teams that I can use to convert from regular infantry to panzergrenadiers

Down range shot

 Lastly, an MMG, a mortar, and a flamethrower. I'll use some spare figures to flesh them out into full teams

From the reverse

Germans from BTD

They are finally ready (minus the Dullcote that I want to put on when the weather is a bit more hospitable because it doesn't dry very well at -8 C) for Hot Lead.

I bought these from Stephen after he picked them up from a Black Tree Design sale. They are easy to clean with very little flash. I had only one figure who was slightly mis-molded but other than a slightly off face, you would not know. I really appreciate the detail that the sculptor included because it made the figures easy to paint. I'd easily recommend BTD.

Anyway, on to the figures:




I've marked the leaders and given the platoons a coloured dot to make separating them easier for Hot Lead.



Let's get a bit closer




Everyone's favourite German LMG pose

From the back







































And the whole company (minus the Lt)




One last shot

Panzershrek teams

When I purchased my Warlord Germans, I realized that I did not have the Panzershrek team that the Chain of Command list called for. Fortunately, Stephen had bought a large number of German figures while they were on sale from Black Tree Designs. I bought the Panzershrek teams from him right away.


The figures painted up so nicely that I bought the rest of Stephen's Germans. Now I have more Germans to paint but they are going relatively quickly. Lots of detail but easy to paint.

German Platoon for Chain of Command

I finished the two boxes of Warlord Germans, which is enough to give me 5 sections. Though one box was actually Panzergrenadiers, I did them as regular infantry instead. (A comment on the photos; the actual color of the mat and figures is more green in real life)



The Warlord figures paint up OK but they are a lot of work as the detail is not as raised as on their plastic Russians or on their metal figures. For some of the MG figures, I substituted a thin copper painted piece of plastic instead the ammo box.

Here are the front of some of the figures:


And here is the back:


Now that I have painted them, there are a couple of details that annoyed me. First is the epaulets are under the webbing instead of under. Not only is that wrong historically, it is tougher to paint. The second annoyance is the Sam Browne style strap they added in addition to the Y straps. I'm not sure why the gave both types of strap because hat that is supposed to be doing but it is something you don't often see in pictures of German soldiers. Unfortunately, it's molded in so I was left with the choice of either painting it or scraping it off. Painting seemed like less work.

I have 60 or so Germans from Black Tree Designs and I suspect that they will see far more table time than the Warlord plastics. They are just better looking and far more durable. I've already had to fix more German plastic weapons than I have Russians and the Russians have seen twice as much action.

In summary, while the Warlord plastic Russians are excellent, the plastic Germans are not all that good. I understand that Warlord have redone their panzer grenadiers and they are better. If so, make sure you are buying the new ones and not the old ones.

A Horde of Russians

Having basically completed all of my 28mm Russians, I thought I would take a picture of them. I basically have a full rifle company according to the 1944 TO&E (of course there's lots of disagreement on what that actually looks like).

I also have a scout section and a tank rider section. I could easily make a full platoon by moving figures around. The observer doesn't actually do anything in Chain of Command but I have the figure so I put him in anyway. The observer and radio men were for communicating with the division, not for artillery (or they used flags if the radio wasn't there or working)

The tank hunters can use a molotov cocktail, panzerfaust, or AT grenade. I just remove whichever AT weapons they are not using.

The mortar is actually an 81mm but I'm going to use it to represent the 50mm mortar that was with Russian companies earlier in the war. I have another one that I haven't finished and a 120mm mortar that I will use to represent a pre-game barrage.

Not pictured are my two T34/85s. One is finished and the other is partially finished.

Oh, and there's also one rifleman who got placed into the wrong box.

Second Thoughts: Warlord's Panzergrenadiers (30 figures and 3 vehicles) and Late War Germans (25 figures)

While I was initially impressed by these boxes, now that I've been assembling them, I'm feeling let down, especially when compared to the Soviet box.

There are a number of problems:

• There are only 5 poses so I now have 11 of each.
• Warlord compounds the above problem by repeating three sets of arms. 
• There is no prone figure so you have no choice but to make the LMG gunners into Rambo.
• The right hands of the rifle arms don't hold the weapon well, unlike the Soviet figures.
• The arms don't integrate very well with the bodies. The shoulders stick out far too much and you don't get a nice joint. Each shoulder requires some knife work to make them far more seamless.
• The one accessory that I expected was some MG ammo belts to add to the figures. The late war Germans, especially Panzergrenediers, are notorious for lugging belts of ammo around with them, but none are included. There's sort of an ammo box but it seems awfully thin. Belts would have been far more useful.

And on top of that, I cannot even borrow the extra Soviet arms I have. The Russian arms are significantly bigger.

It's my understanding that the Soviet box is a later product. The experience that Warlord gained from these inferior German figures shows up.

Bocage

I have created some test bocage. I' rather pleased with the randomness and bulk of them so I plan to go into production of them (about 3 feet worth at a minimum) after Hold the Line next month.

Yes, there's a rather lost Soviet officer but he's the only fully painted figure I have for scale.