Perhaps a surprising choice for the initial vehicles in the Soviet collection.

With attention now turned to getting a Soviet mid war Pocket Army up and running to mirror the German force completed a couple of weeks ago, while the first five bases worth of Soviet infantry are still on painting sticks, these two SU 122’s have pushed their way into the front of the painting queue.

For their vehicle support, the Germans got three StuG III’s and I suppose one might have expected the Soviet starter force to have T-34’s or even SU 76, but I like the character of the more unusual SU 122.

These are 1/144 resin prints from Anschluss wargames, with nice detail and they hold the paint well. The transfers have been taken from my Victrix 1/144 SU 76 kit.

I did do quite a few stages on them to vary that green, but in the final analysis, the eye doesn't really pick that up, so I think in the future I would cut those out and save time.

I did particularly like the Pegasus model (see below) of this vehicle that I had in 1/72, but you could fit four of these little fellows in the same footprint (if that's what you want), so the 1/144 (12mm) is a good fit for my table, though  I am unlikely to want more than two of these models.

I rather miss the 1/72 stuff, but on the flip side, there is something compelling  aboute the 10mm / 12mm models, I just need to get more of them done and get a few games to the table.

Another playing of Assault Sicily by Assault Games and Sound of Drums (working in partnership, one on design and the other on production).

This is not an official scenario, the modular nature of the game makes it very easy just to throw down an off the cuff game. Here I randomly selected a Formation Card (infantry) for either side. As chance would have it, the Germans were veteran and the U.S. were recruits, which fed into the play narrative.

I started each side at opposing board ends, with three buildings in the centre to capture. This was just enough to give a pleasant 50 minutes of game, while I try to get more of this system under my belt. This time I included Command Points, which in effect means that each turn a side will not get to use every unit.

Off-picture (lower left) is a US 81mm mortar. It has open views to the German Infantry unit that moved last turn amongst crops.

The mortar has fired on the German unit. Their view is slightly degraded because line of sight passes through some brush terrain. The end result is that the German unit suffers one hit (the red marker) and also a suppression marker.

The way suppression works here is very good. A unit is only allowed to take one action in a turn and when it does, it is marked with a counter that expresses which action has been taken. This German unit had not taken an action yet, but the suppression marker in effect becomes the unit’s Action Marker - that is, it has gone to ground and is hunkering down, so the German unit cannot act this turn, it is as some designs would describe as ‘spent’ or ‘used’.

Note the green square on the marker. This denotes that if fired upon, it will get an addition dice (green) for its defensive roll, to reflect the unit hugging the ground.

I have decided a couple of times to sell this game and packed it all away neatly ….. and then put it out on the table again! It certainly does have some compelling elements.

Anticipating that the Graysville Campaign might see Shield’s Union division actually reach Graysville itself, I bought a few more 10mm Battlescale buildings, to allow the representation of a slightly larger settlement.

As the campaign moves closer to that possible moment, they have hit the painting table.

These have been primed in Vallejo acrylic poly and then mostly dry brushed as there is plenty of detailed relief on them. they just need a thin wash to dampen down the brightness to match my other stuff and then they are good to go.

The left building is a water mill and comes with a water wheel, which if fixed would not be visible from this angle, so I have dragged it out into open view, just to give an idea of how this is going to look on the table.

In due course, it will get a base that will allow the building to knit in with my narrow river system, so that the water wheel itself looks like it sits either in the water way or next to it, with a diversion channel of water to drive the wheel. There are plenty of scenarios that need these sort of things.

I also have a bottle of Scenic Effects water which I will try to apply to give the sense of water running off the wheel's paddles.

It is still in the balance whether the campaign will generate a battle at the town as already, both forces are weary and there are a distinct lack of fresh troops about. 

This was just one of those lovely discoveries when browsing the shelves of a book shop (Waterstones UK) and a fine example of why book shops are so important and deserve our continued support ….. no money …. no book shop!

The slight downside is that some customers handle the books without due care and my copy has some wear along the bottom edge, which takes some pleasure away from it all,

This is 'Battlefield Panoramas' by Victor Ambrus. Apparently he has been the illustrator for over 300 books on classical and historical subjects.

He is best known to me as the illustrator supporting the Time Team T.V. programme. Time Team was a UK archaeological programme that visited sites of historical value, setting up a three day dig at them, bringing in experts to find out as much as they could about the site.

At the end of the three days, the discoveries needed some ‘imagining’ to bring them to life and that is where Ambrus would come in, with illustrations of say a typical busy Roman street of a group of monks in a religious setting etc.

Here, Ambrus travels through military history, with each subject getting a one page summary of text with a facing illustration on the next page. It is just a nice thing to own, pick up and browse.

My stash of unread books is getting a bit unwieldy, but this 'pick up and put down' magazine style title is a welcomed addition, with every few pages just being able to be read in isolation from the rest of the book.

The blurb on the back of the book explains it rather succinctly, ‘Battlefields Panoramas is a joy to browse through and will win a place on the shelves of all those with an interest in conflict - or simply a love of illustration’.

A small battle on a 4' x 4' table with 28mm napoleonics and home brew rules.

A French infantry brigade is assaulting the village of Bühl with a cavarly brigade in support on the right flank.

As always, even though a small game, this was a lot of fun.

There is a short write up and some extra photos over on the Battlefields & Warriors Blog.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com

Over the past couple of days, I have punched the counters and been going through the game parts of the ASSAULT: Gela 1943 game, which is a tactical WWII system that is new to me. 

There are around 46 pages of well illustrated rules, which I read through once cover-to-cover. It is a fairly easy read.

I am pretty familiar with WWII tactical games, but there are some new concepts here, so I am grateful of the starter scenarios. I set the infantry one up first and played it through. The map artwork is lovely and the starter scenario only needs one board, so I the first game was on a very friendly 12” x 15” sized battlefield.

The system uses opposed die rolls and the four coloured dice are each of a different strength, with red being the strongest, followed by yellow, green an blue. The dice use symbols rather than numbers and the idea is that the attacker rolls their dice and then the defender does likewise, with the defender trying to match their symbols to the attacker’s symbols to cancel as many of them as they can.

The symbols that are not matched ‘get through’ and cause the various effects of Critical Hit, Damage and Suppression.

The dice quality is superb and the system clever, but for my money it just seems to be cleverer than it needs to be and with the slightly convoluted way of checking what dice are needed for each situation and then working through the cancellations, I can’t really see it offering either more or better than my current Old School Tactical system does, with which I am heavily invested.

So I packed it up to sell. But …. I still have a fancy for it, so out it came again last night and I did a tank knockabout with just three vehicle aside. Again everything is clever, but still felt a bit too much for me. Out of interest I ran the same scenario again and used my OST charts and stats and things were so much simpler and smoother / faster …. though interestingly, felt a bit tamer than the crunchy system that I had just been spending the last 40 minutes with!

I have packed it up again, but have just put it away for now, rather than make a rash decision on selling. It still captures my imagination and will no doubt come out again for another dabble.

I wonder to what degree this just needs some proper play time so that the dice system becomes a bit more second nature?

Another nice buy from Waterstones (UK bookstore) Sword Beach - The untold story of D-Day’s forgotten victory by Stephen Fisher and published by Penguin.

The book jacket describes Sword as ‘the least documented is the British landing on the easternmost beach’ and here over 400 pages aims to put that right.

The first thing to be noticed on handling the book is the line of black edged pages, visible when the book is closed and these turn out to be the maps - a goodly number and this is one area that can be lacking in many historical books.

The quick glance that I made in the store that made me buy it, showed a nice balance of a little pre-history, followed by the planning and then a detailed description of the naval aspect to seaborne assault. This looks like it will give good insight, particularly on that last stage of naval assault with the run-up to the beach.

From the actual landing onwards there are lots of accounts of individual actions that are gold dust to those who like to design their own wargame scenarios and which also would have the wargamer asking the question of whether their rules would do that.

I have read a couple of sections and it reminded me very much of how Dave Brown’s ‘O” Group rules goes about things.

So, it gets added to the book stack, something that is growing at a rate that given my current reading rates, is difficult to break into!

On the table today is the Assault game from Sound of Drums. On the painting sticks are 12mm Soviet WWII infantry ...... a busy Easter weekend!

Dawn breaks on 3rd July and the Soviet advance towards Krosnogord continues.

Up ahead are a series of orchards, ringed with stone walls. The Germans have decided to dig in and hold - Captain Lowe is on hand to make sure that happens!

The Soviets are about to walk into a hornet's nest!

The game has been played and the account written up over on the 'Krosnogord Campaign 1944' tab in the menu on the left (6th tab down). Scrolling down to the '3rd July' entry explains all.

Having completed the starting force of the 10 / 12mm WWII German Pocket Army, I have moved onto a mid war Soviet force and first to move off the painting table are a pair of 45mm anti-tank guns with crew.

In my own rules, I take the broad assumption that most often anti-tank guns are carefully set up to take maximum advantage of cover and fields of fire and so regardless of where the guns are deployed, in my rules, they will always be able to claim the ‘cover’ modifier.

For practical purposes, to prevent handling damage, I always put something at the front of the base for the gun to rest on (glued) so that it is supported. Visually this also plays into the notion that the guns are in cover or ambush positions.

For this pairing, one base has a fallen tree trunk added and the other a bit of scrub / hedge.

The tree is made from a small section of plastic tree, snipped off from a tree sprue that comes with the Woodlands Scenic tree build kits.

The hedge is clump foliage, initially glued to the base with a strong UHU non toxic glue and then fed with a couple of applications of watered down PVA glue to strengthen the foliage so that it stands up to the rigours of gaming.

The bases have been kept fairly bare so that they can be used in several settings, but they look a bit sparse and might need a bit more material added.

Last night we played the Quatre Bras scenario from the Napoleon’s Last Gamble package (OSG). 

Historical Background - The French (Ney) task is to pin Wellington’s Anglo-Allied army in place while Napoleon with the rest of the French army attacks the Prussians over to the right at Ligny (dealt with in another scenario).

This scenario - Victory points are based around the control of Gémioncourt and Quatre Bras, plus of course damage inflicted to the other army.

There is another scenario in the package that plays both the Quatre Bras and Ligny scenarios at the same time and in that scenario, the lateral road that connects the two battlefields also yields victory points.

The photo here shows the initial set-up. Off picture, further down the map (at Gosselies) sits d’ Erlon’s 1st Corp, which famously marched and counter-marched between both battlefields, arriving at neither, but his arrival at either would likely have been decisive ….. will he turn up today!

In our scenario, there is a chance that he will arrive to support Ney (position 1 on the map) …. but also a chance that he will march off towards Ligny! (Position 2)

The turns are hourly. The eight turn scenario starts at 2 PM and ends at 9 PM, which is a night turn. Map scale is 525 yards (50 acres) to the hex. The weather starts as ‘Heat’.

AAR - The French early advance is successful and they take Gémioncourt, only to be immediately pushed back out by Kempt at 4 PM.

It starts to rain, which reduces visibility, preventing the artillery from using ranged fire (bombardment).

Kempt’s advance into Gémioncourt was unsupported and he is soon ousted, leaving Quatre Bras exposed and which in turn is captured by Soye.

At 6 PM the weather worsens and thunder storms rage, making artillery slower to manoeuvre and infantry becoming less effective in combat (halved).

Pack re-takes Quatre Bras from the French, who immediately counter-attack and push Pack back out. By this time, the Anglo-Allies had been taking the worst of the casualties and Wellington was considering calling a General Retreat, when Cooke’s Guards suddenly appeared from Bossu Woods and flung themselves at Quatre Bras, in one final glorious Hoorah, capturing it, literally on the last combat die roll of the game!

Darkness descended and the two forces disengaged. Wellington had indeed spent the day pinned in place, as the French had intended, though that last minute capture of the cross roads caused a swing of 10 Victory Points from French favour to Wellington, reducing the French Victory from a potential Strategic Victory to a ‘French Marginal’ victory.

As for d’ Erlon, he did not reach either battlefield, but for me as the Anglo-Allied player, it would have been great fun to see him activated and for the French to think he was moving up to support them, only for him to veer off to the right and advance towards Wagnelee (Ligny battlefield) …. I’m sure that would have demoralised my opponent :-) Note - I was managing the activation of d’ Erlon, so that his behaviour, based on die rolls, was kept secret from the French player, until intention was visibly obvious, giving Ney an emotional connection to the hopeful arrival of d’ Erlon that he actually had during the real battle.

Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable game, with both sides fully involved and key locations changing hands several times.

I quite like doing anniversary battles, so I will explore the individual battles in this box and then in mid June, in time for the 210th Anniversary of Waterloo, the full campaign can go onto the table, which combines the battlefields of Quatre Bras, Ligny, Wavre and Waterloo into big scenario.

Mike and myself did that with the original Napoleon’s Last Battles game, on one long hot summers day in the 80’s …… so it is certainly time for a re-visit.

Two more titles enter the collection from the Library of Napoleonic Battles series. Napoleon's Last Gamble, which covers the three days of battle at Quatre Bras / Ligny/ Wavre and Waterloo and Napoleon's Wheel, which covers Danube engagements with the Austerlitz battle as the main event.

I am working with the Napoleon's Last Gamble game first, while I have the rules under my belt. Having recently played Wavre with the older Napoleon's Last Battles package and having over the last 12 months done Quatre Bras with three systems, NLB, JdG and Eagles of France, I know the Quatre Bras situation well enough to be able to then make a reasonable judgement of merit between the games.

I have just put the Quatre Bras scenario on the table. It has a limited order of battle, so should play relatively quickly.

Of interest with this system is that each side gets a number of potential 'alternative' reinforcements that may or may not arrive during play (a random determination).

For the French, this includes d'Erlon's Corps, which famously marched and counter-marched between the Quatre Bras and Ligny battlefields without arriving at either. Their arrival may likely have changed the outcome of one or other of those battles and I suppose it is always a game design quandry what to do with d'Erlon. Most games seem to keep him remote from the field.

If d'Erlon does activate, there is a 50 - 50 chance he will be available to Ney at Quatre Bras ....... but also a 50 - 50 that he will march instead towards the Ligny battlefield - nice.

I like that here, the player gets the emotional feel of playing Ney with a hope / belief / expectation that d'Erlon will arrive ..... but where the hell is he!

The playing area is large enough that d'Erlon's I Corps set's up on the map, which I think will add to French player's expectation / frustration as to his arrival, since he is tantalisingly visible.  I will know by tonight :-)