Bolt Action Sea Lion - Airfield Defence

 On Friday I brought my 1940 Highlanders to participate in Lisa's Bolt Action Sea Lion campaign.  Fortunately I also brought my 1940 Germans, which stood in as fallschirmjagers under John's control. The scenario had my Highlanders organised as an airfield defence platoon who were required to protect RAF Lympne from a raid by German paras.

This was my first proper game of Bolt Action:  I'd had a playthrough a few years ago with my Jhamjar armies, but this was the first time with 'proper' forces and some guidance from experienced players.

The game started with most of my platoon dispersed around the airstrip, using a few bunkers for defence, waiting for an attack which could come from any direction.  I had a Rolls Royce armoured car and a section of Royal Navy armed sailors off table in reserve.  The Germans rallied their paras off table, and came on to the table from the southwest.

As the Germans came on, my Vickers MG was able to lay on some fire, but it was rapidly flanked and wiped out.  A section of infantry lay down fire from across the airstrip, and kept the Germans occupied while the rest of the platoon moved down the airstrip to engage the enemy.  The reserves came on as well, the Roller being very effective at suppressing the Germans.

Here we see the Germans coming on around the Quonset huts while the Highlanders opposite lay down fire.  To the upper right, another section of Highlanders is starting to react - they waited to see if any more Germans were coming in elsewhere before leaving their position to take on the force coming in to their left.

The Highlanders in the foreground are bravely holding and laying down fire as their mates come along to help them out.  As inexperienced troops, they took casualties pretty every time the Germans fired on them, but they hung on!  Meanwhile, the Germans were veterans and very difficult to kill, but I just kept on piling on firepower so they were too busy rallying off the pins to break out of their positions.

The Rolls Royce has arrived, and is laying down fire on the Germans to its front.

The balance of the Highlanders advance, using the aircraft on the airstrip for cover.

The RN armed sailors have arrived, taking the pressure off the remnants of the Highlander section (now down to just the Bren gun and loader).

This was pretty much the end of the action.  The Germans are falling back, but still control one of the objectives, the Quonset with the green pawn.

  The Highlanders were pleased to have chased away the Germans, but unfortunately for the British forces, the Germans enjoyed greater success elsewhere.  Of the three Sea Lion campaign games on Friday, two went to the Germans, with the Highlanders' success at RAF Lympne being the exception.

What a Mountie!

What a Cowboy is a brand new set of rules from Too Fat Lardies for playing Hollywood-style, wild west shootouts.  I jumped on the pre-order, and when the game arrived, I summoned some of my What a Tanker gaming mates around for a test drive. Apologies in advance for the poor quality of the photos.  I was more focussed on playing the game!

Since I live in Canada, just for fun I decided that we'd play a scenario with Mounties in the Yukon, rather than the Hollywood staples of the dusty Southwest or flat prairie.  We tried scenario 3,  'The Rescue'.  The Mounties had arrested a trapper for DnD and were holding him in their outpost cabin, when his mates decided they needed to bust him out of the hoosegow.  Each side had two shootists and two greenhorns, two armed with six shooter pistols and two armed with rifles.  

Here is the basic layout.  Two Mounties were at the cabin, and two came on at the far end of the board.  The four trappers came in on from the bottom of the picture.

Obligatory moose shot (just be glad I didn't pull out the beavers!)

The trappers advance onto the table

Constable Fraser dives for cover behind the laundry as Sgt King moves up to support with his rifle.

Trapper Bob and Sven Olafson move up alongside the creek.  Constable Macleod is forced to seek cover in the woods.  The little clouds of smoke are pin markers, used when a character dives for cover or hits the dirt.

Sgt Fraser has suppressed trapper Beardy MacBeardface with rifle fire, while the crazy Scotsman has pinned Const Fraser (again).

Standoff between Const Fraser and Angus the crazy Scotsman.

Angus has been taken down, while Trapper Bob tries to make his way into the NWMP cabin.  Not visible, but Const Frobisher is inside the cabin with the prisoner.

Next, Trapper Bob was killed.  At the end of this turn, the two remaining trappers failed their 'Ride or Die Test' and fled the table.

We all enjoyed the game.  As always in a first playthrough, we had a few questions, but since we are already familiar with the What a Tanker engine, the game came to us quite quickly and we were confidently taking our turns.  The game is fast and cinematic.  With a bit more experience, we will be better at using the Bitcoins Bonanza tokens and remembering to check our Desperado cards.  We are also looking forward to getting a chance to use some more advanced characters (gunslingers and legends), adding in horses, getting some Brawlin' (hand to hand combat) and more.

Barbed Wire

 Here is a quick and dirty little terrain project.  I have a WWII Op Sealion game coming up on Friday at Bonsor, so I assembled a few barbed wire sections so I can have some obstacles to trip up the nasty invaders!  Bases are plastic, and the uprights are styrene.  Bit of grit, bit of flock, bit of wire and hopefully I'll be able to trip up those fallschirmjagers!

Sgt Schultz added for scale.

Panzer I and II

 Two more tanks for my 1940 Germans.  These are a Panzer I and a Panzer II from Die Waffenkamer.  As usual, lovely models from JTFM!  Once again, I kept the paint job as simple as possible.

The tank commander for the Panzer II is removable.

I was surprised to find out how small the Panzer I is!  It is about the size of a British universal carrier.  Here's a comparison shot with a soldier looming over it :)

To the Rescue! What a Tanker at Trumpeter Salute

 On April 14th, I hosted a session of What A Tanker at the Trumpeter Society's annual convetion, Trumpeter Salute.  We had a fun game, 6 players (including Arthur), and with the excellent and greatly appreciated support from Craig as referee and rules expert!

The scenario was very loosely inspired by the Battle of Leonforte in Sicily in July 1943, specifically the rush by a troop of Sherman tanks of the Three Rivers Regiment to enter the town and relieve the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, who were at risk of being overrun by German forces.  And I mean VERY loosely inspired, as the layout of the town is wrong, and the action leaves out all the infantry, anti-tank guns, engineers and others involved!  Really, all in all this was just an excuse to push toy tanks around the tabletop :)

An overview of the table.  TRR Shermans came in from the left, and the Germans entered from the right.

The first Sherman III enters the table, Arthur's tank Cobault.

Panzer IV takes an indirect approach to the town square.

While Brian's Sherman moves to flank the Panzer IV!

Stug III and Sherman face off along the road.  When setting up the table, I tried to avoid long, straight avenues like this, but this one slipped through my planning!

Arthur's tank is pushed back from the plaza.  Despite being a target for every German tank, Arthur had amazing good fortune with his armour saves all through the game!

Thanks to Doug for this photo.  Brian's flank move allowed him to take out the Panzer IV!  Alas, his success was short lived as his tank was later taken out by the Germans.

Corvette and Cobault maneuver to the centre of town

But are caught between the Panzer III and the Stug.

This was where we called the game.  Two healthy German tanks left, against a battered Canadian Sherman.  Arthur's Sherman had been hit again and again, but was saved by a string of lucky armour saves that managed to match or beat all the attacks against him!

 Thanks to everyone who participated!

I just wanna bang on the drum all day!

 Here is another impulse purchase.  I picked up this Games Workshop 'armoured troll' on a whim, not really having a place for it in any of my current forces.  There are multiple different options for assembling the figure, with armour or without, with a selection of Mordor or Isengard helmets, and with a variety of weapons, including a choice of a great big troll sword, spear, club or axe. So naturally, I built him as a drummer.  

German reinforcements

 It's been a couple of months since my last post, apologies for the lack of content.  Things have been busy.  Painting and gaming have been on the back burner, but still slowly progressing.

First up, a German command pack from Warlord Games!  Naturally, there is the stern commander, complete with monocle, who will is a fantastic looking figure but will likely only take part in a pulp-style adventure game!  Of more practical use are the medic and the forward observer/radio operator.  And of course, one more tough, veteran NCO with MP40.  He certainly looks the part, but I really have more of these SMG-wielding NCOs than I have need for!

In the Chain of Command Blitzkrieg 1940 book, some German platoon are allocated 4 squads, and on most lists even for the 3-squad platoons, a fourth platoon is a support option.  Accordingly, I decided I needed another squad, "just in case".  These troops are from Artizan Designs.  Although the other troops in the platoon are from Crusader, I wanted to add these Artizans for the fourth squad, partly for variety and also because Mike Owen, Artizan's owner and sculptor, actively collaborated with Mark Sims of Crusader to ensure the figures would be compatible.  Strictly speaking, the Artizan figures are designed for 1942, so there are some minor uniform differences with the 1939/40 uniforms of the Crusaders.  I'm not sufficiently educated in these details to spot the differences, though!

Another option from the Blitzkrieg book is to field Germans with antiquated, World War I era equipment.  To allow for this option, I picked up some Great War Miniatures Germans armed with MG08/15 machine guns.  In this case, I CAN spot some of the differences with the WWII uniforms!  I did minor modifications (scraping away the puttees and painting them to look like boots), but at arm's length, they will serve just fine, and will show which squads have the obsolete machine gun instead of the MG34.

I also procured another Panzer IV for my German forces on Sicily.  I did this as I volunteered to host a game of What A Tanker at the Trumpeter Society's annual Trumpeter Salute convention next weekend, and I wanted 4 German medium tanks to counter the 4 Sherman tanks that I've lined up to face them!  This tank is a Warlord Games model, painted to match the other German armour I've already got.