Pearl

Next up for Bad Squiddo's Women of the Resistance is Pearl Witherington and her bunny.  Pearl was born to British parents in France, and was working for the British Embassy in Paris when the Germans invaded in 1940.  She escaped back to England, where, after a initial stint with the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), she joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) which had been formed to support resistance movements in occupied Europe.  When Annie researched Pearl, she glommed onto the story of Pearl's pet rabbit, who spent so much time with Pearl that it became oblivious to machinegun fire.  Accordingly, this miniature of Pearl is joined by her little bunny :)

Truus

Continuing with the Bad Squiddo Women of the Resistance, here is Dutch resistance fighter Truus Oversteegen.  As a teenager girl, the Nazis didn't suspect her of being a danger.  She and her sister Freddie their friend Hannie Schaft would lure Nazis to secluded locales so the Dutch resistance could kill them.  Truus eventually became a trigger-person herself.

Here's Truus with her trusty submachinegun.  I've painted her with blond(ish) hair, although as I squint at B&W photos it's possible she was a brunette.

Hedda

Continuing with the Bad Squiddo Women of the Resistance miniatures, here is Danish resistance fighter Hedda Lundh.    Hedda became an expert in explosives.  Annie's description of this model indicates that she's checking her bag to ensure her dynamite is ok.  For me, the image is innocuous enough that this figure could easily fit in to any mid-twentieth century setting as a normal person who could be encountered in the street.

02 Hundred Hours - Evade

For our Tuesday night gaming, we had another go at 02 Hundred Hours, this time scenario 5 - Evade.  In this scenario, an RAF pilot has been shot down and the local partisans are trying to get him to safety before the Germans can catch him.

The pilot starts in the lower right corner and must leave the table at the upper left. In between, the Germans are patrolling and searching for him.

The pilot starts his journey.

Germans on patrol along the road as their officer plans at the table in the camp.

Partisans move into the orchard as they move to assist the pilot.

The pilot has been spotted by the sentries on the road!

The dog handler is alerted to the partisans in the orchard.

Partisans move up to engage the German officer.

Partisans take out the dog handler with a Molotov cocktail!  Alas for them, this was their only success of the game.

The Germans surround the RAF pilot.

The partisans rush forward to help but it's too late, the Germans capture the pilot!

This game was interesting.  The pilot has a very difficult job, especially as he is rated as a 'trooper'.  In a future game, I might promote him to a 'character' just to allow him a potential of two activations in a turn.  Towards the end, the pilot's actions were particularly limited, as he kept needing to burn his activation to duck German bullets, until he was finally out of luck.

Downed Pilot

 For our next 02 Hundred Hours game, we are going to play the 'Evade' scenario, in which a crashed pilot must avoid capture by the enemy.  For the focus of this game, I finally finished up this downed RAF pilot from Warlord Games.  

Simone

 This is Simone, from the Bad Squiddo Games' Women of the Resistance kickstarter.   

The figure is based on an image of Simone Segouin, a member of the French resistance.

There is absolutely no way that I could have painted that checkered shirt, so I was very excited to find another image of her in a plain white shirt instead!

Here are a few more shots of my version, including the armband showing loyalty to the Free French forces.

02 Hundred Hours - Sabotage take 2

Lisa and I replayed the same Sabotage scenario that we played last week, with a change in teams. This time I played the attackers, using partisans instead of SAS.  Lisa's defenders were pulpy Germans. Partisans are quite fun.  Individually they tend to have lower skill levels than SAS so are more likely to fail tests, but there is a great degree of variability amongst them, so that each figure can be more characterful than the SAS soldiers.  Partisans also have access to 'Plan' cards which can give the partisans an edge.  The trick for all of the cards, whether Order cards, Event cards or Plan cards is to read them carefully to understand what they do and then remember to actually use them!

As with last week, the target for the attackers is to detonate explosives on the ammo dump in the centre of the table.  Arthur set the table for us, and replaced last week's orchard with a cemetery (lower left).  I could not resist, so my partisans entered the table through the 'dead centre' of the town :)

German She-Wolves following their patrol route.  I've had these figures in my collection for years, and was excited for them to make an appearance on the table.  With regard to the armbands - when I painted these, I really didn't feel like painting swastikas, so instead they armbands are based on the WWI Imperial German black-white-red tricolour.

She-wolf sergeant supervises the patrolling sentries.

Partisans move through the cemetery.

She-wolf sentries spot the partisans, and a firefight erupts!

Partisans defeat the first patrol, but make too much noise!  Other sentries move to engage the attackers.

Now that the alarm is raised, the German officer Col. Klink leads the reinforcements onto the table.

On the other side of the table, a She-wolf patrol gets the jump on Luc the partisan.

But then the patrol is taken out by the partisan explosives expert who lobs a Molotov cocktail at them.

Alas for the partisans, the gig is up.  The firepower of the German defenders is too much, and the partisans are defeated.

Despite the lack of success, I'm keen to try again.  It's a good strategy for the defender to set up patrols in pairs, as a pair of sentries are much harder for the attacker to take out than a single defender.  The attacker really needs to maximise what they can achieve before the alarm is raised.  Once the defenders are alert, the attackers need to focus on escaping the scene as they are not likely to win any engagement.  Look out for more reports as I prepare to host 02 Hundred at Trumpeter Salute in April!