Operation Brushstroke

Mission:

To complete enough 28mm troops and support units to run a game of Big Chain of Command at Hold the Line on June 20th.

Assets: 

I have an number of friends who have some German troops that I can use if I don't get mine done. I also have a semi-dedicated painting space. I also have a good uniform reference book.

Description:

As listed on my inventory page, I have the following things to paint:

• 95 or so Russian figures to add to my existing 46
• 1 45mm AT gun
• 58 German figures
• 1 T34/85
• 1 Hetzer
• 1 Sdkfz 222 armoured car
• 3 Sdkfz 251 halftracks

I have about 6 weeks to complete them.

Plan:

1. Assemble all the figures and vehicles, scrape flash, and clean joins. Status: 55 Russians done. Target: May 4th.
2. Prime everything. Target: May 8th.
3. Paint the Russians. Target: May 25th. 
4. Paint the vehicles and other supports (except for the halftracks) Target: June 1st.
5. Paint the German figures. Target: June 15th.
6. Paint the halftracks. Target: June 16th.
7. Dulcote everything. Target June 18th.

Other items:

• Scenario design
• Scenario briefing
• CoC reference sheets
• More JOP markers
• Moar terrain!

Hold the Line - Saga

For the afternoon session, I played in a game of Saga. Saga is basically Dark Ages skirmish. It's a pretty basic beer n' pretzels game. The only real twist is rolling saga dice (or really ordinary dice if you want to save some money). You then allocate the dice to move, attack, or gain some special abilities. The use of the dice really adds some nice flavour and brings some thinking to the game.

The scenario was a six way free for all. Not my favourite type of scenario, but at least I would learn the game.

 

I found the combat in Saga far too bloody to be satisfying. More than one battle resulted in mutual death and destruction of all participants. And it wasn't as if it was caused by extraordinary rolls or the elimination just barely happened.

I think if I'm getting into Dark Ages skirmish, Dux Britanarium is probably more to my taste.

Hold the Line - Impetus

So I went to Hold the Line a couple of weekends ago (I would have posted this earlier but my bout of elbow tendonitis is really curbing my typing). It was a small con, but that is to be expected for its first year. Nevertheless, there was a good balance between the number of games to play and the number of gamers to play them.

There were a few vendors there as well and I made a couple of purchases (more on them in future posts) .

The first game I played in was an Impetus battle between Normans and Byzantines. I took the right side of the Normans. My plan was to send my infantry forward in the centre and tire out the opposing troops before hitting them with my knights.

Things started really well for me (and I benefited from some really clutch rolling). After a couple of turns, I managed to take out the opposing horse on my right. In this shot, you see one of my knight units take a Byzantine heavy cavalry unit from the rear after they got distracted by my medium horse. Meanwhile, my infantry were closing in on the opposing line.

 

Meanwhile in the centre left, things look promising with Norman knights breaking through a cataphract unit and our infantry closing in.

On the far left, it's a confusing mess. But things seem to be progressing. 

Back on the right, my infantry continue to advance and my second knight unit on the right has a clear path to the flank of the enemy battle line.

In the centre, one of my reserve knights plowed into battle and started to push back the enemy foot and cavalry.

 

Then my dice deserted me and the tide turned.

On the left...Hey! Where did all of our units go? The only ones I see are a line of militia infantry.

Basically, the Byzantines won, but because I had such an advantage with my fresh or almost fresh cavalry, we decided that the Normans would withdraw unopposed.

A very enjoyable game. I really like Impetus as a set of rules and again they did not disappoint.