Back to 1944 again, Scenario 3!

 Well it's taken us a while to get sorted but we've finally got enough tanks and troops painted up to be able to fight Scenario 3 with fully painted forces. I took command of the Germans and my Eldest (9) took command of the Allies. We adapted the Scenario from the rule book so instead of having the Germans face Americans we had them face the British. This meant we had a Sherman firefly Captain and two Cromwells supported by two infantry sections and a Lt for the British. The Germans had the standard Panzer IV Lt, a Tiger tank two squads of Grenadiers and a Lt.

Set up. Germans concentrate in the centre whilst the British spread out.

Report

07 May 1945

To: Lt Col Jenkins CO 8th Bn Border Rgt

From: Capt Jenkins OIC A Sqd Border Yeomanry

Report:

We approached the Village from the North. Lt Tomkins with 3 section A Coy 8th Bn Border Regiment, took up position on the left flank behind a ruined barn. 2 section with Corporal Dodds took up an advanced position on the right flank ready to seize the farm house. I took up a central position with the Firefly supported on each side by two Cromwells from no1 Troop A Sqd. There was no sign of the German forces and so we Advanced on to the Objective.

2 Section under Cpl Dodds moved into the Farmhouse and secured the objective. Suddenly a Jerry Panzer IV rapidly advanced forwards into the main farmyard and fired on Sgt Baker's Cromwell on my left. This caused considerable damage leaving the Cromwell in a perilous state. Sgt Smith in his Cromwell decided to Open up on the Jerries and rushed forward around the back of the Farmhouse to take the Panzer IV in the Flank. Unfortunately he doesn't get a clean shot and only causes minimal Damage to the Panzer. His Machine Gunner also fired on the Grenadiers supporting a Tiger tank but only one of them was hit.

As Sgt Smith's Cromwell came round the back of the Farmhouse the turret on the Tiger tank traversed and fired. Sgt Smith's Cromwell exploded in a ball of fire and no survivors were found. I ordered my gunner to engage the Panzer IV to our front in the hope of taking it out but although it was a solid hit it wasn't enough to destroy it.

Suddenly a German artillery strike hit and shells fell all around Sgt Baker's Cromwell one scored a direct hit and demolished the tank.

The board at the end of turn 1. The Germans are on 8 points for destroying the Cromwells (2 points each plus a bonus 2 points each under the scenario victory conditions.) whilst the British are on 5 for holding the objective. It's looking good for the Whermacht.

Before we could regroup the Panzer made a mechanised assault and fell back out of range of our gun. Moving in concert with the panzer the Grenadier squad on Jerries right flank advance up to the Farm walls along the edge of the road. They then opened fire of Cpl Dodd's 2 section in the objective. Luckily no one was hit as the thick walls of the farmhouse saved everyone inside.

Lt Tomkins and 3 Section doubled up to the farm walls along the road on our left flank directly opposite the German grenadier squad that had moved earlier.

Suddenly the Tiger, who were as cool as a frosty morning fired upon Cpl Dodd's 2 section in the Farmhouse. the damage was pretty impressive and blew a huge chunk out of the building killing 4 of the lads inside. This pinned Cpl Dodd's squad down in the farmhouse.

Luckily Cpl Dodd's never gives up and he managed to rally his squad into firing upon the Grenadiers sheltering behind the wall on the German right flank killing two of them and causing them to become pinned down. We then carried out a commando worthy assault to get into cover away from the Tigers gun.

(I forgot to take a picture at the end of turn 2!)

The Germans continued to hold the initiative with the Tiger displaying superb teamwork and pushing forwards into the Farm yard, As soon as it became obvious the Tiger was advancing we "moved it" out of there an went hull down behind the ruined barn. The Tiger fired on us but only caused minimal damage. Staying as Frosty as possible we returned fire and scored a direct hit on the Tiger causing considerable damage.

The German Grenadiers behind the farm wall on our left flank remained pinned and failed to move out from cover. Cpl Dodd's section used their PIAT to hit the Tiger tank and caused more damage to the formidable beast.

The Panzer IV fired upon Lt Tomkins and 3 section with HE and, despite their cover 5 lads were killed. Luckily Tomkins held his men together and they gritted their teeth.

The Board at then end  of turn 3. The Panzer IV has fallen back out of range as it's down to just 2 hull points. The Tiger moved up to attack the Sherman Firefly but only caused 1 penetrating hit. in return the Firefly scored 3 penetrating hits! followed by 2 Section scoring a penetrating hit with their PIAT! scores are still Germans 8 British 5

With the Tiger out in the Open I seized the initiative and fired from our position behind the barn scoring a direct hit and blowing the turret off it. Despite this devastating loss the German Grenadiers with their LT at the back of their line showed superb teamwork and moved into a firing position to engage Cpl Dodd's 2 Section. The hail of rounds they put down left only Cpl Dodds in fighting condition but despite being pinned down he never gave up and continued to hold the objective.

Lt Tomkins and 3 Section fired on the Grenadiers in front of them and took down three more but the Germans remained pinned down. The Panzer IV the hired another HE round at Lt Tomkins and 3 Section but this time their cover saved them and no one was hit.

Displaying unbelievable fortitude and bravery above and beyond duty. Cpl Dodds took a pot shot at the German Lt and his squad but he failed to hit. The Grenadiers behind the farm wall finally plucked up the courage to pop their heads above the wall and took a few shots a Lt Tomkins and 3 Section but they failed to hit any of our boys.

At this point the Germans started to pull out leaving us in control of the Farm.

Board at the end of turn 4. The Tiger is gone all squads have passed morale to become unpinned but the British are quite firmly in control of the Farm with 2 Section still holding the Farm house (despite taking 90% casualties they only failed a handful of morale tests and never went below pinned!) The Panzer IV is dangerously low on armour points and the German no 3 Squad is only just above half strength.

The German command station at the end of the battle. Two Cromwells destroyed but not enough! 

The British hand at the end of the Battle lots of dead Tommies but the Tiger tank won them the battle!

This was a really fun Battle and proved that decisive action early in the game can win you the battle. The bold British move to send 3 Section in to capture the Farmhouse in the very first turn even though they weren't supported. Trusting to the British Tommies special "Never Give Up" rule which gives them a morale boost really worked in their favour allowing them to hold the objective for the entire game. On the flip side the Germans reluctance to get stuck in and backing the Panzer IV Lieutenant away from the combat zone was probably what cost them the battle.

Back to 1944 game time

 Despite life being pretty darned hectic We did manage to squeeze in a quick game of Airfix Battles a few months ago. 

Turn 1 from the Germans side. 

Unfortunately I completely forgot to take any more photos!

It was a very simple game the first side to get five stars won. The Germans had a Hauptmann with a squad of veterans to form the command squad seen on the far left in the setup. Next up was a section of two MG42's then a section of Grenadiers led by a Leutnant. Finally a Panzer IV Leutnant and a Panzer IV finalised the battle lines.

The British had a Major with a squad of veterans, a section of Tommies, a Vickers heavy machine gun section a Sherman Firefly Captain and a Sherman. As you can see both sides were reluctant to advance to begin with. The Germans sent the Panzer Leutnant ahead to try and outflank the British Sherman. Meanwhile the Firefly took pot shots at the Panzer IV on the German right and rapidly destroyed it. The British Infantry took the ruined house on their right flank and then stayed in cover for most of the rest of the game. The German grenadiers advanced up the right flank and along with the Panzer Leutnant they destroyed the British Sherman.

The Firefly working with the Tommies PIATs took out the Panzer Leutnant which gave the Tommies their 5 stars for a win. This was our first battle involving multiple armoured units and it showed how deadly the firefly can be as it can outreach the German Panzer IVs and do more damage. It also showed how dangerous PIAT's and Panzerfausts can be when you can get them behind a tank. The MG42's and the Vickers were really disappointing in this battle with neither claiming any kills and both sides being reluctant to advance them into the open and infantry staying well clear of their firing zones.

Back to 1944 Again

So last time we looked at the British armour that we've been working on. Today it's the turn of the Panzers.

I've had an old Airfix Tiger kit sat in the gaming shed for pushing on 30 years. I'd lost the tracks years ago but Airfix sent me out a new set so I could complete the kit. and now I've managed to finish building it.

Finally completed after 30yrs of ownership, the tracks aren't quite right as an 11yr old me didn't do a great job of sticking the wheels on straight!

The kit has some faults with parts missing and it's not the most detailed but again the nostalgia kicked in with this and I'm pretty happy with the result so far. I've still got to add decals and I might look at scratch building some of the missing parts such as track guards and exhaust covers but it's fine for gaming with in its current condition.

To support the Tiger I also finished off my other Panzer IV. Again this is an old Airfix kit, at least as old as the Tiger and it was partly built I've just finished it and painted it up.

Here we have both completed Panzer IV's

I love this kit, I don't know why it's no better or worse than any other Airfix kit I've made but it has to be one of my all time favourites. It's probably linked to it being one of my favourite WW2 tanks but also it was one of the first I ever built back in the late 80's. The detail is good and the tanks just look great it's pretty easy to assemble and wouldn't take much work to make it into a fantastic model. As a wargaming piece it's top notch and I don't think I'd ever consider buying a different Panzer IV.

I've also been working on some Panzer Grenadiers to support these panzers and a few of sdkfz's of various types to transport the grenadiers. I was given the Revell version of the old Matchbox Panzer II and I'm looking forward to building that and comparing it to the one I built in the 80's.

Back from the Ashes! and back to 1944

Well it's been quite a while since my last post on here. Life has once again gotten in the way of hobbying  and I haven't achieved an awful lot. What I have managed to achieve is mostly based around my WW2 1/72 scale projects for our Airfix battles wargame.

I've been working on my Wehrmacht armour and my eldest has been working on his British armoured units. First up is a Cromwell from Armour Fast,

The Armourfast Cromwell is on the left with our existing Airfix Cromwell on the right. Obviously there is a difference in scale as the Airfix Cromwell is 1/76 whereas Armourfast is 1/72.

It's not easy to see from these pictures but the Airfix Cromwell has much better detail than the Armourfast one. Considering the Airfix kit is getting on a bit my 8yr old managed to assemble and paint it with no problems.

We still have to paint on unit markings for the Armourfast Cromwell and these will be similar to the Airfix Decals. 

 The Armourfast tanks was very quick and easy to assemble and from a wargaming point of view it's got enough detail to satisfy the kids. Personally I prefer the Airfix kit as the detail is far higher and I really like the 1/76 scale I just think it looks better than 1/72 (probably because that's closer in scale to the model railway we're building in the attic.)

Next up was an Armourfast Sherman Firefly,

We painted the Sherman on the sprueas its easier to get to all of the parts. As you can see there are only a handful of parts to each tank on the Armourfast sprue.

A few minutes later and the Sherman is built, Not the best picture but it's a pretty basic tank. Again like the Cromwell above there's enough detail on here but nothing fantastic.

Next on the list for the British is an Arifix Sherman and it'll be interesting to see how the older 1/76 kit fares compared to this much newer 1/72. It's only fair to point out that you get two tanks in each Armourfast box compared to one in the Airfix boxes but the Airfix models are far more detailed and come with decals. The kids don't seem to mind which ones we use but I get a lot of nostalgia out of the Airfix kits I just wish I could find some of the old Matchbox 1/76 Sdkfz kits!

The Idol of Gork

 As you may have seen in my 2020 round up I managed to progress my Idol of Gork project a little toward the end of last year. I finished another 10 halberdiers and all of the hand gunners needed for the first scenario.

Here we have the almost complete unit of Von Bocks Halberdiers. There are 11 sat on the painting station to finish the unit off and I've got a plan for their flag. This unit is mostly made up from Battlemasters Halberdiers with a GW musician and Perry Bro's champion and standard.

Some of the extra hand gunners to create two units of 10 these are GW 6th Ed Empire Hand gunners.

The musicians and standard bearers for the two hand gunner regiments. These are Perry War of the Roses minis.

And here we have the leader of the Empire forces for the first scenario Von Bock. This is a Perry minis War of the Roses English Foot knight with a Perry Italian mercenaries metal head.

On the paining table at present are the remaining 11 Halberdiers, 10 Great swords, 20 crossbowmen and 20 halflings.  fingers crossed I'll have them finished by the end of May!

Back to 1944 again

Having spent so much time on The Idol of Gork scenario last year I decided to spend a bit of time on some of my Airfix models.

I've had some Airfix Panzer IV for years now and I gave them a pretty rubbish paint job back in the day so with the Boy and I spending a bit of time playing Airfix battles I decided to refurbish them.

I started off with a battered old Panzer II to test the paint scheme. I also had to carry out some repairs as this old veteran had lost its main gun and a number of it's wheels and one of it's tracks. (But it is a good 30 years old!)

This was an old Matchbox kit which is now available from Revell

 Once I was happy with the scheme I set to work on the Panzer IV's one is finished and is shown below. the other is nearing completion and both need new Decals. they're certainly far from perfect and they wouldn't win any awards  but they look half decent on the table top mowing down the Boys Tommies.

The scheme is a base of desert yellow washed with Nuln oil then dry brushed with desert yellow and bleached bone. The camouflage is bestial brown and Imperial Strike Green. All of the colours are either GW from the 80's and 90's (except nuln oil) or their equivalents from Coat'd Arms paints.

The black isn't quite as stark in real life but I'm thinking of toning it down with a dry brush of gunmetal grey from Humbrol. 

Back to 1944 making a scene!

A while ago now I made a bombed out farm house so we could use it in the 'Rescue the Colonel' scenario. It was always my intention to put together a blog post on how I did it but I never got around to it. So as I've got a tiny bit of spare time on my hands I decided to post about it now.

This is the downloaded and printed French farm house which can be found Here 

it's a nice easy kit and comes with instructions on how to assemble and how to print in 20mm and 15mm scales.

front and back are identical

the kit has a seperate roof and a small lean too for the front if you want.

The completed basic model

I built this to get a feel for how the house looked and so I could compare it size wise to my 20mm (1/72) figures and to the grid on the airfix battles mat.

Having made the basic house I was ready to create the ruined version. Here I've got a couple of copies of the house printed out, various pieces of mounting card which I got from Hobby Craft, some thin strips of Balsa wood approx 3mm x 3mm a metal ruler a sharp knife, the Airfix Battles mat and a selection of brick papers from Here

To create the base I measured the size of the grid and cut the mounting board to fit.

I then copied the outline for the farmhouse onto the mounting card and drew in the areas where I wanted damage. You'll notice that the gable has been cut with a rebate to accept the front and back walls

I kept test fitting the pieces throughout the process to make sure everything fitted together and looked right.

Once all of the pieces were cut out I made sure that they fitted together and looked ok.

Next I covered the external walls in brick papermaking sure that the paper applied to the gable overhung slightly so it would cover up the ends of the front and back walls.

The inside of the Farmhouse received a flagstone floor courtesy of Wordsworth Model Railway

Here you can see how the overhang on the gable covers the ends of the front and back (the back isn't quite square on this photo)

Once the exterior had been covered in brick paper the interior was decorated with a selection of 1940's wallpapers from Here

The upstairs bathroom and kitchen were just whitewashed while the living room, hallway and master bedroom were papered. The attic wall was covered with brick paper.

Next I cut a piece of mounting board and papered it with the relevant wall paper to make the hallway.

Taking a spare copy of the original model I cut out the window frames using a scalpel and carefully fitted them into the window slots. because the mounting board is much thicker than the 200gsm card I printed the house on the frames fitted nicely inside the gaps and created a rebate.

Exposed edges were then painting in a brick colour which roughly matched the brick paper and the inside of the window frames were painted white. I've also added some more walls for the hallway to mark where the kitchen door was located.

Next I started to add some extra details some pictures on the walls and a rug on the living room floor courtesy of Wordsworth Model Railways household and white goods set.

Airfix German for scale.

I then used GW inks and washes to weather the house, concentrating on the tops of the walls to make it look as though water had been running down

Once the interior was complete it was back to the exterior and adding the render in the form of the original model. I think with hindsight the cut on the render is far too neat and smooth I should have made it more jagged as if the render had been blown off. I also cut out the shutters and window sills and lintels from the spare copy of the model and added them to the windows.

The back of the house

I think this render looks more realistic as the cuts are more jagged and angular. I lso put small pieces of mounting board under the render near the cuts to make it look as though the render was coming off the wall.

The ceiling was added onto the living room using white 200gsm card and then had balsa wood 'joists' added

The ceiling was then covered by a wooden floor with numerous planks cut out and the bedroom ceiling was added along with the roof joists.

testing the roof to see where it needed to be cut

The roof has been cut and fitted to the model.

The edges of the tiles were coloured in a similar reddish orange and the render was edged in grey which helped to disguise the smoother edges somewhat.

sandbags were added outside of the house to make it look as though it had been used as a guard house or command post. These were made out of modelling putty.

The floors inside were now weathered and rubble and debris added from the left over bits of wooden flooring and brick work papers.

The exterior was also weathered and the base was covered in sand and painted a dark brown.

Tiling the roof with individual strips of tiles to give greater relief on the roof

Sand bags have now been painted with a thin coat of desert yellow and flock has been added around the base as well as a dry brush of some lighter browns.

This HaT mortar commander was chosen to represent the Colonel in the scenario and he was based so that he would blend in with the upper storeys.

If I'm honest I haven't quite finished it as I haven't finished adding all the roof tile strips and the balsa wood rafters need a good stain and weathering as does the white inside of the roof and I forgot to paint the edges of the base but the boy's loved it and it worked well in the battle. It was also extremely cheap as I already had all of the items needed to build it left over from other projects so there was no extra expenditure :-)