Soviet Platoon for Chain of Command

At Hot Lead, I purchased a box of 28mm Soviet WW2 troops from Warlord along with a MMG and a mortar (technically an 81mm but it will serve as a proxy for a platoon mortar). I finally completed them last weekend.

Here are the troops ready to kill the fascists.

 

These figures paint up nicely. Here is a section:

To give you an idea of how nicely they are sculpted, here's a close up:

Most of the paint is Vallejo. I used Russian Green for the helmet, Reaper tanned skin, Russian Uniform Green, Leather Brown for the belt and cartridge cases, Violet Green (?) for the blanket, and I think Khaki for the straps and puttees. I then gave them a coating of my depleting Devlan Mud was. I then went back and hit the high areas with the original colour to counteract the darkening and colour change done by the wash. I finished them off with a couple of sprays of Dullcote. I've never used it before and it's a little shinier than I thought it would be.

Just in case my troops do not show sufficient bravery and self sacrifice, I've done a Commissar. Unfortunately, the picture does not show the nice blue he has on his cap. Trust me, it's there and nicely painted too.

I have some anti-tank troops as well. Here are the tank hunters. I can have them throw an anti-tank grenade or a molotov cocktail. I've updated the flame in the cocktail after this photo so that it is a bit brighter than what is shown here:

Here is the longer ranged solution:

Here are the metal figures I bought. I prefer the plastics to the more cartoonish metals. Judge for yourself. Here's the mortar team:

And here is the MMG team (at least the ones that came in the blister pack. Obviously, I'll add a couple of rifle men in the game to bring the team up to full strength):

Finally, a sniper team. This is my favourite photo because it captures the animation and detail in these figures best.

I do have a few questions though. I want to get another platoon. I could go for another box of Warlord but I'm wondering about the Wargame Factory Russians. Are the comparable in size and bulk? Would they mix and match well? Do they have a nice mix of weapons and poses? Do they have options that are not available in the Warlord box?

Backgrounds for Canadian leaders for Chain of Command

With his At the Sharp End CoC supplement, Rich provided several tables in which you can roll to see the backgrounds of the senior and junior leaders. Sadly, he only provided those tables for British, American, Soviet, and German units. Here's my attempt to fill this omission:

Location:
1 Down East
2 Quebec
3-4 Ontario
5 Praries
6 West Coast

	Canadian Officers
2	A scion of a prominent family, you could have avoided the war.  But there's the family name to consider and no shirking is allowed. The CO is very happy to have someone so connected in the regiment. Add +1 to the CO's opinion.
3	Mountie. They always get their man and you left the RCMP to go and get the biggest baddest guy around.  +3 to your age roll
4-5	University graduate. Your degree won't help much on the battlefield, but at least you are an officer. + 3 to your age roll
6	A manager in a company. Your skill at dealing with people has helped your career in the army as well. +3 to your age roll and +1 to the men's opinion.
7	A patriot. Pa fought in the Great War and now it's your turn to give the Hun a thrashing.
8	Government administrator. You oversaw a number of government work projects and invested well. Curiously, the men, many of whom spent some time on the dole, don’t seem to like you. Subtract 1 from the men’s opinion and +3 to your age roll.
9-10	Up from the ranks. An enlisted man pre-war but your professionalism and expertise were needed when the army expanded.  Roll again on the NCO background table. Add +4 to your roll for age. Add +1 to the men’s opinion
11-12	A newspaper man. Just when your career hits rock bottom with the obituary beat, you became the lead writer of the great story of the 20th century: the liberation of Europe. Providing you survive.

	Canadian NCOs
2-3	A food preparation architect. Your skills with the knife and various ingredients make you popular with the men and officers a like. Farm animals are not safe in the vicinity of the unit.
4	A transportation engineer.  You can drive anything with wheels provided you don’t mind the occasional dent or ding.
5	A railroad engineer. You’ve seen all of Canada, and now it’s time to see Europe. At least you are not shoveling coal to do it.
6	A natural resource engineer. Whether its fish from the sea, wheat from the field, or syrup from the tree, you harvest with the best of them.
7	A lumberjack and you’re OK. Even if your choice of undergarments is a bit curious and you are an amateur herbier.
8	An information specialist. Your typing skills should have made you a clerk in the army, but somehow you have ended up with a gun. Hopefully you will survive until you can get back to your rightful position in the safer rear areas .
9	A handyman who can do a little of everything, which helped your family survive the dirty 30’s. Perhaps you should have added a fancy descriptive title to your profession….
10-11	A hockey player. Because
12	An innovator who hopes that serving double cream double sugar coffee and donut holes will take off, eh!

Ruined building from 4Ground

This was another purchase at Hold the Line. I have just started with 28mm and I felt I needed to get a building or something to have an objective. J&M had a bunch of 4Ground buildings but I was feeling a bit of sticker shock with the prices of 28mm terrain and vehicles. They did have a Russian house that was interesting but I didn't feel like spending that kind of money when I really had no idea what it would look like constructed.

I really didn't have to worry. The assembly was easier and things went together well. One of the corners on the building didn't quite go properly but that is my own fault for missing the step in which you wrap the entire building with an elastic until the glue dries. Even with that mistake, the end result is a very nice looking ruin. In terms of time, I completed it over the course of a couple of baseball games on TV but this building also had a lot of fiddly parts. Now that I've done one of these types of buildings, my next one will be quicker.

All told, I am very impressed. I've already decided, once I scrape together the money, that I will be getting the three eastern front WW2 buildings from 4Ground. These buildings are perfect for those gamers who want a colourful building they can assemble and use quickly.

In the Box: Warlord's 1/56th T34-85

Since I now have a platoon of 28mm Russians for Chain of Command, I went to Hold the Line looking for some armour, anti-tank guns, or transport. I was looking for a T34-76 or even more particularly, an anti-tank gun, but all I could find was a T34-85. Good enough for me!

Here's what you get. Two spues of tank and a decal sheet (not pictured)

 The box lets you have a buttoned up tank or have the commander sticking out of the hatch. When I first looked at the commander he seemed a bit small. When I compared him to a 28mm figure, my suspicion was confirmed. Either Russian tanks were crewed by pygmies or there's something wrong with the tank's scale. Since I cannot picture more than 6 28mm figures crowding on the back of this tank, I suspect that the tank is on the small side of what it should be.

Aside from the slight issue of scale, this model assembled easily and quickly. The join between the upper and lower turret was not as clean as the rest of the model but that was the only problem area. The tracks were a bit tricky at first to figure out how to assemble but once figured out, they went together cleanly.

I messed up the "Death to Fritzes" decal so I had to fall back to the "To Victory" one instead. I think I'm sticking to minimalist decals otherwise.

Here's the assembled version:

(OK Justin, I see your Pz II and raise with a T34. Don't make me purchase a JSII because I will if I need to.)

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.

Beer interlude: King Brewery - Vienna Lager

Rating: 56

When I first tasted this beer, I was a little disappointed. It seemed flat and lifeless. It was OK in that you could have it cold and it would be fine.

However, it did have some redeeming features. First, it was free. My wife had won it in a raffle, and as she doesn't drink beer, I inherited it. Second, I had six bottles. I don't throw beer out (unless its Guinness, which I don't like and have never liked) so I ended up with five more bottles to drink.

With additional tasting, I've grown to appreciate its qualities. It has a pleasant tangy taste with slight hints of orange. It's otherwise mild on the palette but hits all parts of the tongue. Whereas my first tasting seemed flat, I now see it rather as mildly carbonated. When vigorously poured, it develops a nice head. But instead of big bubbles, they are the smaller finer bubbles you normally associate with bottle conditioned beers or wheat beers.

Would I buy more? Yes, I think I would. It might not always be my first choice, but it would not be my last either.