Lots to talk about

*WARNING – LONG post ahead!*

Nice to have a 3-day weekend to spend on hobby pursuits! Feel like I got lots done as well.

Sunday I had a game of Chain of Command planned with my mate Stewart and needed to paint up a platoon of 15mm WW2 British infantry along with some infantry support teams (Flame thrower, PIAT Anti-Tank and the like.).  Just tabletop quality paint job as time was of the essence.

Enough for a game of Chain of Command plus some Flames of War vehicles if required. (Please note the sexi freehand star on the bonnet of that jeep. Mad skillz.)

The game itself was a load of fun. Stewart hosted and we got to play on his very nice Western Europe setup. The mission rolled for was plain old “Patrol” – essentially a German Heer infantry platoon and British infantry platoon are sent out ahead of their main forces to see what’s going on in a French village. We didn’t have many resource points to spend on support units and so Stewart picked up an Adjutant to bolster his officer cadre and (If memory serves correctly) a Panzerschreck team. I in turn chose a solitary Universal Carrier with mounted Bren Gun, hoping it’s greater mobility would offer broader options. The rest of the platoons were pretty much mirrored otherwise: Officer, 3x 10-man infantry squads, light mortar team and for me a PIAT team.

In an effort to make a good narrative, I decided my initial deployment during the “Patrol phase” would stem out of the bocage in the lower left of the board. After some maneuvering deployment areas were sorted and we got going. The game was pretty brutal and bloody and for almost the first 5 or 6 phases it was certainly going my way. Then Stewart started wounding or taking out my squad leaders and stalled my carefully laid assault altogether! In the end, it was declared a draw and we decided that after our brief firefight that our bloodied lads sensibly withdrew to call up armoured assets to flush out any remaining enemy or perhaps just shell the hell out of the settlement and level it altogether!

My deployment points in blue.

Stew's own in red.

My initial troops are deployed. (The red box around the lower right house was supposed to be blue.... No idea how it came out red?) I brought on two infantry squads, one on the left, one hunkered down in the house at the crossing and my light mortar team in support in the center. Stewart brought on his own mortar behind the trees top left and his Lieutenant and a 2nd infantry platoon in the center.

My universal carrier comes on and some movement happens. 

(Again with the red box when it should be blue on that house!?) My reserves start arriving, a second squad on the left in support of my push to threaten Stewart's deployment point and my platoon Sergeant to bolster my light mortar. Stewart's own  2nd and 3rd infantry squads come out to play. 

The Brits make a push over the left-most hill! And stall... withering fire injuring squad leaders! All game long my mortar tried to drop rounds on the enemy and scored.... absolutely no casualties. -__-  The Universal Carrier likewise did little to nothing with it's own Bren gun. Wasted resource points there then.

Managing to overcome the injuries to their Corporal, one of the left-most squads rushes the germans and forces them back(!!!), but in turn are left out in the open and now easy prey to the German squad int he center.

Masses of small arms fire is exchanged all over the field of battle. On my right, Stewart's 3rd infantry squad manage to assault my boys in the house at the crossroads! The hand-to-hand fighting is swift and deadly and whilst my brave lads are cut down to a man, they manage to cause enough casualties on the filthy Hun so that they bug out and run back into the woods! At this point we called the game as a draw, with both sides retreating out of the village to lick their wounds and call up support.

Sunday was my opportunity to play my first game with my Bolt Action Soviets on a proper-job Winter themed table and against a late war Winter themed German opponent! My opponent was Craig, a very nice fellow I met through the Sacrament Bolt Action Facebook group and we each slapped down 1000 point forces playing the mission “Heartbreak Ridge” which involved taking and holding objectives with lots of reserves to have to drop into the game as the initial turns of the game came about.

My force was my previously previewed painted Soviets . Craig brought a Lieutenant+adjutant, a  couple infantry squads (One in a half-track transport), Sniper team, Panzerschreck team and a bloody nasty Pather tank that became the MVP of the game.

The game was a swift one with Craig’s dice rolls being the champion of the battle – it just seemed like even though he required 6’s to hit on multiple occasions he regularly rolled 3 or 4 and passing would rolls aplenty! His own Panther tank taking out not only my own tank in the 1^st turn, but also a whole infantry squad and my ZIS-3 Anti-tank gun! My plan was pretty good, but I had to call it in the end after my infantry squads were either eliminated outright or just ran off after taking ugly casualties.  Even with so many losses on my side (I almost killed a mere single squad.) the game almost ended in a draw, but we rolled to see if there was to be a turn 7 and that game Craig the time to pick up a center objective and claim the victory.

A VERY fun game against a cool opponent and on a super cool table.

Craig's lovely set up at the game store.

He started with two infantry squads on the table.

The VERY nice ruined house with the center-most objective inside. This was an impressive and large resin piece, sadly out of print I think.

I start the game with my ZIS-3 AT gun and my Guards infantry squad.

The truck comes on in my first wave dropping off it's passenger cargo of my poor inexperienced squad. 

Those poor green boys would try to get forward but were no match for the output of small arms fire of their German opponents and bogged down in place for almost the whole game.

The Guards squad is tasked with securing the center objective, supported by a BA-64 Armoured Car.

Turn your head sideways (I couldn't get the picture to orient correctly for some reason) and you'll see that this horrible German Panther has taken a nasty shot at my poo T34/85, brewing it up before it even got to do anything! 

These germans had a field day blasting apart my poor inexperienced lads all game long.

W-A-Y back by Craig's elbow, behind the fuzzy log barrier is a Panzerschreck team. I could have sworn I eye-balled the distance between them and where I'd placed the armoured car correctly. Apparently not, an ambush shot took care of my plans. 

The Panther was king of the game. Here it is near center chasing down my poor Tank Riders. 

And..... I quit. With little to nothing left to threaten objectives, what remains of my force retreated. In bad order.

After painting all those 15mm Brit infantry I needed a distraction from tonnes of brown uniforms and so picked up the first of my Project Z miniatures (a Zombie Beast, some sort of large undead creature that came about as part of a scientific experiment or some such). I decided to go with a grey-green scheme for it’s skin as opposed to the sickly-yellow of my sci-fi zombies or yucky-green of my fantasy undead. It’s a really nice sculpt with crisp detail and the only really prominent mold lines were on it’s head (A separate piece to the main body). This mini only took me the span of me watching the new Magnificent 7 film to get done. I kept the scheme deliberately simple so future zombies for the project would end up being as swift to paint up. Kind of looking forward to working on some more!

Crappy yellow lines on the base to represent the middle of the road. They'll do.

Between the above infantry platoon and this zombie I'm already 40-odd minis painted for the year! 

That’s it – next post will feature some 28mm British Commandos I think. And maybe a zombie or two more.