It's all Greek to me! (Part 8 - Infantry Squad #3 Complete! And a whole lot more.)

**Settle down, grab a beverage and some reading glasses - this post is going to be a long one. **

Well, as in most cases, "best laid plans" tend to end up floundering and so my plans in fine form for this project followed suit in short order. I managed to get the 3rd squad of Greek infantry I mentioned in my last post finished but could only find time to slap on a couple of base colours onto the 4th squad and so had to attend the event on Saturday 7th February with only 95% of my force fully painted. Not bad, but not what I wanted. 

The 3rd squad though does look rather splendid and fits in nicely with the others I've painted up so far. Once again, these are metal sculpts by Great Escape Games and were fun to paint.

Infantry Squad #3 - lots of tasty 'tache's in this group.

Also painted up this fun little Orthodox priest who I add to my FAO team who'll ask the big feller above for extra luck getting those off-table artillery strikes on target for once. (With my dice rolling, I need all the help I can get!)

This little fellow has since been given a coat of flat varnish. 

The whole Greek WW2 collection as it stands - best pics I could get with the time, space and lighting available. Just a pair of trucks to paint up and then they'll be done, "Fully Painted" if we want to be specific and add titles. For now. (I'd like to pick up a few more pieces of armour and another pair of Bren Carriers, but those are purchases for next year.)

On February 8th I attended the 2nd annual Operation Sweetheart event at GameKastle Sacramento. It was the first 3rd edition event in the area, and I played my first three games of the new edition, winning one and losing the following two. Not a bad result, especially considering as I brought my Greeks and they had little to no anti-armour options. A fun day and great to see both locals and travelling players from the Reno community. There was a good turn-out including some new players and also a young-blood (13 I think?). Being that the event was 4 months ago I don't recall hard fast details, but my first game (A win vs late war Germans) was highlighted by my rolling immensely well, the second (A loss vs an all over the place german list) marred by my opponent bringing an almost all unpainted army who also proxied about half his force, and the third and last game (A loss vs late war Brits) where my dice and lack of ability to hurt the multiple armoured options of my opponent caused a little frustration. Regardless of the result, a good time was had and it was fun to take my Greeks to an event.

Pics are in no particular order and included here just so you have pretty things to look at. 

Sideways? Poor editing on  my part.

Now that the event is done and long past, that 4th infantry squad will get done.... sometime. Moments for hobby are back to being few and far between - curse you real life!

I also managed to get in a game with my gaming pal Densmol whilst our respective wives sat on the lawn and drank alcoholic seltzers and chatted about whatever it is women discuss when menfolk are elsewhere. As you can see in the pictures, this was my test run also for my WW2 Airfield terrain setup. Still more to add and plenty to paint up, especially that Heinkel, (The large building is not part of the set along with some of the scatter terrain - I just needed to fill the table moreso) but I like the direction it's headed.

I provided forces for both sides - Densmol played my Winter Germans and I faced off against them with my Winter Soviets. It was a fun learning game for both of us using the now not-new 3rd Edition of Bolt Action. Densmol ended up winning, lots of new rules were forgotten or plain mis-played, but we both had fun. 

Blanket as a game mat. Not bad, but not great. Needs some variation in shades of green and a jolly good iron!

One drunken evening I found myself trawling online stores and made some purchases. I only found this out the following morning when I saw the order confirmation emails in my inbox. (Don't tell the wife.)

Water Buffalos for my Late War Canadians

Fuel Truck for my Airfield terrain, BA-10 for my Winter Soviets and a pair of sd.kfz 10/4's for my Germans. 

Also some "not Beakie Space Marines" by another Etsy store that I had the seller upscale a little to the same size as Primaris cos I like my mutant human warriors huge. (Poor Greek soldier included for scale)

The Beakies came in a squad of 5 cool individual sculpts. I also stupidly jumped on the chance to pick up an in scale classic style Space Marine Dreadnought by Hybrid Miniatures on Facebook. I have a buying problem, it's true.

It's always nice to have new things, even if you really don't have time to paint them.

Last year I put a (very) small amount of cash into a Kickstarter for some 3D print stl files for some East Front terrain. I then found out my co-worker has a printer at her home and she offered to print all the files out if I provided the filament. So here are some of the prints - very crisp and well detailed and currently in the queue for primer, paint and snow effects, hopefully getting done this Summer. Am hoping joining Dave Stone's "Summer of Scenery" challenge at his blog, will help motivate me.

Soviet Schoolhouse and a tin-roof'd barn

Some cool scatter terrain to add extra flavour

Log cabins

A small Orthodox chapel. I also have some benches to place inside. 

Back to painting progress - I managed to get in some painting time this last week whilst my wife was away on a trip to Oregon to visit her grandparents. 

First off a pair of Anti-Tank Rifle teams for my Greeks, bringing the total of these I can drop on the table to 3.

More metals sculpts by Great Escape Games

And then a pair of furry faced warriors for anthropomorphic skirmish game Burrows and Badgers. Both leaders of their respective warbands. These are the first painted for a campaign me and my pal J are going to play through when opportunity arises in the future.

Sir Rowland Othyr, Otter Lansknecht

And Ylvis Sez, leader of the Freebeasts

 And lastly, on the 24th of June, I got in a game of Bolt Action at my mate Stephen's place. 1000 points each side, I took my Greeks again and he faced off with some cool Early War Germans (A mix of Fallschirmjager veterans and Regular Heer.). My dice were hot this game and once again, even though I really should have struggled to deal with his German armour, somehow I managed to drop mortar rounds in the right places and blew them up and then proceeded to grind down his support assets to win 10-9. Beautiful table to play on and a great host. 

My Greeks

Stephen's Germans

And some pics in no particular order - just here to look cool. Stephen's setup was great looking and made for a very narrative gameplay.

A very pinned out sd.kfz 222 armoured car. Crazy what VB and Light mortars can do!

The man himself - Stephen is also the Official Warlord Raider for Northern California and Nevada and origanises all the events and tournaments.

Okay done now. If you managed to read this far down, apologies for the lengthy silence. Am hoping I'll have time and enough content to post again before the blog's 14th birthday on 1st October, but I make no promises as this summer is super busy with famikly stuff. 

Hope all are well and happy out there,

- Dai

Duel in the Desert Tournament AAR from 14th March

On Saturday, I attended the Norcal Flames of War Tournament Circuit March tourney at the Red Lion Hotel in Sacramento. The theme was "Duel in the Desert", 1650 point lists restricted to the North Africa book and any corresponding .pdf's. 

Ten players (Including the TO and his son.) attended and a fine day of gaming ensued. This was a strict red vs blue setup with 3 Italian, 2 German, 3 British and 2 American lists present. The TO allowed Mid War Monsters as well, though I think only his, his son's and one of the Italian lists featured any.

If you've been following my blog for the past 4 months, you might have noticed I've been painting Desert British units that I'd selected to fill out a particular list as follows:

I always loved the rousing story of El Alamein and this list has all sorts of elements that could (And would) have been present during the 2nd battle. Plus, there are so many different types of pieces to paint, I knew it was going to be a lot of fun hobby-wise too! Just for list-building's sake, there is pretty much almost everything one should require to deal with just about any threat I would expect to face in the 1942/3 North Africa theater. My only real fear were Tigers - my poor 6-pounders were really not up to the task, so that's why everyone and their brother got Sticky Bombs! (Not that I even used them once....) The only real weakness I can think of in this list is the small unit sizes meaning I'd have to be careful maneuvering about the board prior to assaults. Night Attack was the flavour of the day. 

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My Game 1 as versus my nemesis, Richard Gagliasso and his Italian Bersaglieri in Counterattack. Four tournaments in a row now I've played Rich. I am in firm belief that he has magical dice manipulation powers, for every game we play my dice roll even more 1's and his own a veritable plethora of 6's. -__- Regardless, I set up well with two strong groupings of mobile assets each headed to an objective under the cover of darkness and was ready to assault almost on Turn One, but it doesn't matter how good plans are if you can't hit a damned thing when you shoot. So my assaults didn't go in as his defending troops were unpinned in buildings and my other group managed little more than managing to take out an Anti-Tank Gun platoon and severely maul (But not break) some allied German Grenadiers. 

2-5 to Richard. Not the best start, but on to game 2!

Richard's setup in his quarter of the table. 

Two Motor platoons armed with AT-Rifles and MG's, some cheeky Armoured Cars and a platoon of Crusaders never rolled so many ones together. 

After the first round was done (The Axis beat just about every Allied player I believe.), our armies were put out for display and for players to vote on for the Best Presentation Award.

A better look at Rich Gagliasso's Italian Bersaglieri. He said he painted them in the darker uniforms so he could use them in multiple eras of the war. 

The other half of Rich's Italians. So much stuff...

Wyn Robertson's US Tank Company. I believe Wyn was the only Allied player all day to actually win a game.

Dave Partak (The TO) played a British Tank Company, which must have been sucky as there was little Axis armour brought on the day and so the lack of High Explosive firepower to hurt infantry pretty much doomed him to a frustrating time I'm sure. Please note the platoon of 3 (!!) Tog2 Mid War Monster heavy tanks in black on the right!

Chris Hansen's Italians

Dave Ripperda's Desert Germans

Dave Partak's son played a British Infantry company...

... which also included a platoon of Mid War Monsters. This time, some Churchill 3" gun carriers - the black 3-tank platoon on the right.

Russ Moore brought his Italian Paratroops and also brought along a single Italian Mid War Monster, the P40! (Which is acutally not much of a "Monster" at all if you look at it's crappy stats.)

Kevin Spesart's US Infantry. I think I missed his 155mm artillery in this picture.

Densmol's Germans. None of it is Desert appropriate though. Lazy sod.

Game 2 had me face another player who I struggle to beat, Dave Ripperda in Hold the Line. Dave brought a German Infantry force with mobile Artillery including two Bisons (Which were bloody nasty.). I opted to Night Attack again in the hopes of swamping him with stuff before Day broke and he was stuck only being able to place one platoon on the board at the start of the game, (His Wespe artillery.) with two others being in ambush (Two large infantry platoons.). This game started a little better for me and my boys made good progress rolling toward his lines all mounted up in trucks with tank support. Unfortunately, he popped his ambush on turn one in a long line and my attack stalled, then Night turned to day and with so little terrain, my boys were munched. I did well enough to kill his Bisons and almost took out both his Wespes and an infantry platoon and land on an objective for a possible win, but in the end I again lost 2-5.

Dave's setup at the beginning of the game. If it weren't for Night Attack slowing down my movement, I would have been in his face and far tricker to  deal with  way earlier. 

Spearhead and Recce moves gets my infantry and Recon too far ahead of my tanks, which proved rather silly of me.

Suddenly, out of nowhere all these bloody Krauts spring out of the sand in a long line. 

With Anti Tank guns in support that made tank assaults pretty tricky.

Day comes about and I drop smoke to help keep my Kingforce Churchills safe as they try to get close enough to assault the infantry line.

Best moment in the whole tournament for me was when Dave's Stukas are called in first turn to try and bomb the slow tank column. Dave rolled for 3 planes too, so I had to try to roll my own Air to try and intercept. I needed to roll a 6 for my RAF Hurricanes to force off his divebombers. And I got it. We set up this fun picture to celebrate!

Burning tanks everywhere.....

These German troops know how to tow the line. I did manage to get an assault off, but in the end, Dave just broke them off to keep them alive and on top of the objective for the win.

My last game was against Densmol in Encounter. By this time though I was downspirited after two failed attacks and so declined to Night Attack a third time and instead chose to defend against his German Grenadiers (And TWO Tiger 1E tanks!). Things were actually going pretty well and my plan, including dealing with those Tigers was pretty good. That is, until all of my tanks, showed they were bloody crap and couldn't even run over a Nebelwerer rocket artillery emplacement... My planes came in almost every turn, but failed to destroy even one target. I tried hard in this game but couldn't even earn myself a point and lost 1-6. Bit of a poo finish for me in the end - joint last place!

On the right my boys were defending a small compound, whilst my 6-pounder portees took long range pot-shots at German halftracks, whilst at the same time, doing their best to avoid the monstrous Tigers!

My tiny HQ mortar platoon were the most successful of my whole army this game, smoking Densmol's 8.8" Flak gun (Far end of the table with the yellow box around it) every turn so it couldn't target my tanks as they advanced up the flank.

Churchills ready to assault the Neb's with Crusaders as second wave.

88 somehow manages to bail a churchill which the Neb takes out in a counter-assault. The same exact turn of events happened when my Crusaders rolled in. 

After this, I stopped taking pictures and pretty much gave the game to Densmol. He ended up almost winning the whole thing, ending 2nd place Axis with Richard Gagliasso getting 1st place. Wyn Robertson got 1st place for Allies. Russ Moore won Best Sport and in the end my day was made all the better as I got the award for Best Presentation, which made all the blood, sleep and stress spent on the army I brought worthwhile in the end!

*I didn't include a picture of my own force as I want to showcase them in their own post with proper pictures and the remainder of the army painted up*

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