Friday Night Games: Battle for the Denistr River, Tiraspol, Romania 1944

22nd November, saw Mark's 20mm WW2 game staged at Rupert's pad. The scenario saw a Romanian force, backed by some German support attack Russian positions across the Dinistr River bridges.

Early view of the tabletop, prior to placement of Russian Defensive lines

Rules are those devised by Mark, who also umpired. Leading the Romanians were Phil, Mat and Mike W, whilst the Russians were played by Mike N and Rupert.

The two main bridge crossings over the river,
to left the rail bridge and to right the road bridge

Opening moves were taken up with Romanian recce and exploratory advances across the two bridges.

Small Russian Village

Russian pill boxes were attacked with some success  with two knocked out by units crossing the road bridge.

Weckage of a downed Russian Aircraft

Resistance to the rail bridge crossings was arguably stronger, resulting in a squad of engineers and a squad of infantry being eliminated as they attempted their crossings.

View of the tabletop from the Romanian side of teh table

Another view

Rear echelon russian Trenches

Romanians begin to cross the rail bridge

Initial Romanian gun deployment on the road bridge

Another view of the tabletop, from the Romanian side

Romanian Recce Aircraft starts a series of sweeps to locate enemy units and postitions

Infanty advance to the road bridge to exploit success aginat enemy pill boxes

Mortar support nre the road bridge

Romanian HQ secure the high ground

Knocked out Russian pill box

More Romanian recce sorties

Romanian 'heavy' armour arrives on the tabletop, at the rail bridge!

Additional support arrives at the road bridge

Romanian view of teh advance along the rail bridge,
note the Engineer section and their foothold on the far back, left of bridge

Advance across the road bridge reaches the half way mark

Friday Night games: 15mm North West Frontier

 

British Infantry Battalion

Friday 8th November saw Week #1 of a 15mm North West Frontier game put on by John at Mike N's gaff. The figures are frm john's collection and John also umpired the game using the  "An' Go to Gawd like a soldier" ruleset available free from WargamesVault.

British reserve and Wagon Train advances up the centre of the table.

Commanding the British side was Phil with help from Mike W,  Mark and Nigel, whilst the Afghans were played by Steve, Rupert and Mike N.

View of the British front line advancing up the table,
each hilltop being a potential location for enemy snipers to interdict their advance.

The rules played well, with the players quickly learning teh iins and outs of this type of conflict, a novel approach is that uints are able to move to any point on th etable, only limited by the intervention of the enemy - making it a speedy game to play through.

Close-up of some of the British forces

British Wagon train and ambulance, the ambulance playimg an important part in picking-up the wounded and saving them from the enemy

By the end of Week #1, eth British had made significant progress but at the cost of loosing two companies of dragoons when they were whacked by a massed Afghan Cavalry charge. All to play for in Week #2.

View of the tabletop - pre battle

Another angle on the tabletop - pre battle

On the british left they have some early success, storming a hilltop and destroying an Afghan infantry unit, similarly in teh centre a small Afghan infantry unit is mauled and sent packingby the British - before their cavalry finally appear!

Another close-up on British infantry

Finally some Afghans appear, and a mass charge by their cavalry wipe out two Britsh Dragoon Companies

Friday Night Games: 15mm Boer War

Friday, 18th October, saw Week 2 of John's latest Boer War game at Rupert's gaff.

Using his own 15mm collection  John umpired the game  with Steve  Rupert and Dave commanding the Boears whilst Mike W, Mike N and Mat commanded the British gorces.

British 'Grand Battery' artillery park in centre of battlefield

Week 1 had seen strong British advances by Mike N's forces with one British Brigade reaching the enemy defensive lines, right of centre, in a fidgeting.

Further to the right  another of Mike N's brigades had reached a forward spur of the enemy ridge and were engaged in a tough fire fight at that location, which saw the Boers gradually driven back through Week 2.

Part of the British flanking cavalry brigade

Mike W was able to begin an assault on the ridge line, left of centre, with his Highland Brigade, who advanced swiftly to engage the enemy, whilst supported by a small naval battalion.

and the other half of the British flanking cavalry brigade

On the far left Mat commander an outlining Cavalry force who were in the process of arcing around the enemy positions to engage them in their flank or rear.

Boer positions on thir right flank - Scandinavian Command comanded by Rupert

As play progressed  the British Brigade in the centre continued to push forwards. Mike N's Brigade broke through the Boer line supported by Mike W's force who attacked the neck in the ridgelibe, despite heavy casualties to the Highlanders, they too pushed through  despite much of the Brigade ending up retiring under heavy fire.

View of the main British attack going in on the centre of the Boer lines,
note Artillery barrage in support

At the hieght of the battle in the centre, Mat's Cavalry flanking force appeared in the Boer's rear, forcing a clear gap in their lines.

A couple more of rounds of fighting and large parts of the Boer centre were disappearing off the table.

Close-up of the central British assault going in 

On the Boer's right flank, Rupert's Scandinavian Commando remained largely unscathed and in place. Although contributing to the defence of the 'Neck' they were never directly attacked.

Another view of the Scandinavian Commando's positions

Overall a British victory, however a close run thing. On the Boer side, Rupert's commander had been killed and was thus blamed by others for their defeat. Dave's field commander had performed bedt on the day and thus put in a claim to take overall command of the Boer forces in their next forray in to battle.

The flankning cavbalry attack arrives behind Boer lines and helps split their forces.

Savage Orcs

After a bit of a break I've been able to complete a group of six Savage Orc Bosses, tese guys are part of the 3D printed Blood Bowl set that I was able to purchase some weeks back.

In the scheme of things these guys would be linemen in teh Blood Bowl game, but due to their size (they're big) I'll be using them as Bosses!

Six Savage Orc Linemen / Bosses

Each figure was painted in my usual way for Savage Orcs - which has progressed to be a cream undercoat, Skeleton Horde on the bone work and then Army Painter Orc Skin on the flesh areas. Leather is GW Snakebite Leather and various other colours as required to add detail.

All speen paints are then allowed to dry before building up highlights with drybrushing and / or the use of various lightened base coats.

I have found that I need to varnish the bone areas first and let dry before returning to varnish eth skin - to prevent seepage of ink colours to stain the bones green! Annoying when first encounterd but easy to fix.

Another view of the finished Savage Orcs

Close-up No.1 - this guy has bone armour and is using lizardmen hide as a loin cloth and knee pads.

Close-up No.2 - again thi sguy has a lot of bone armour as well as trophies and trinkets adorning his body.
The Toadstalls are from an old GW kit.

Close-up No.3 - far too many bone blades on his right hand glove and an enhanced set of teeth as well!

Close-up No.4 - this guy is the only model that betrays the original intent for these guys
- in a clasic Lineman pose but not out of context here!

Close-up No.5 - triceratops armour plus a lot of bone blades, what more can you want!

Finally, Close-up No.6 - Bull's head belt buckle and bone armour,
this guy is carrying a flaming torch, just because he can...

All the bases are on 40 x 40mm plastic bases, the regular 30 x 30mm bases just won't hold these big guys....

Last 28mm Landschneckts for now...

So I finished up my last batch of Landschneckts as advertised in my last posting - only difference being teh ,ake-up of the group was limited by the available arms and weapons left on the sprues. In this batch I had to go with 1 x Pikeman, 2 x Double handed swordsmen and 9 x handgunners.

The completed batch of 12 x Landschneckts

THe figures were again painted as previously described, the aim being to merge in to teh rest of my collectionand to build out a pike formation with supporting handgnners, crossbowmen and Double-handed swordsmen.

Close-up on four of the handgunners

In total there are 12 x pikemen, 11 x Double-handed swordsmen, 6 x Crossbowmen and 25 x handgunners.

The rear rank of handgunners brought to the front rank

This unit will be used in a number of battles tha I'm planning.

Another view of the Handgunners

Large view of the single Landschneckt Pikeman

The two Landschneckt Double-handed swordsmen