Ludenkopf 1982 - a Modern Spearhead action.

Finally... after a LOOONG time (well before the February 22nd 2011 Christchurch earthquakes, at least) Keith and I managed a Modern Spearhead game. The game was developed using Keith's Scenario Generation System, was set in our preferred cold war period 1982, and most unusually saw my BAOR British on the attack against a defending Soviet force. Keith has written an excellent after action report about this fictional battle around the Northern German town of Ludenkopf. Here are a few additional photos for flavour.

The battlefield at the start, with the defending Soviets on the left (that's Andrew's arm settling some of the defenders into position).

One of the attacking British mechanised infantry battalions advancing.

Soviet 120mm mortars in position in cover and bringing down fire. These were silenced with some effective counter battery fire from a supporting battalion of Abbots.

One of the attacking mechanised infantry battalions quickly took effective flank fire and turned to position itself in cover to protect the flank of the main armoured thrust.

Troops from a Soviet Motorised Infantry battalion in position along a river line, threatening the British left flank.

The main British armoured thrust pushed past a small town, its reconnaissance Scimitars uncovering a Soviet 10mm AT gun platoon ensconced in the outskirts. The AT guns didn't last too long though.

The British left flank is looking decidedly dodgy, with the Soviets having committed their reserve T64 battalion to a counter attack. This may hurt!!!

As the ground action grew in intensity, the British heavy artillery (M107s) had been waging a campaign of counter battery fire, suppressing and neutralizing the Soviet towed artillery, and then the majority of the Soviet air umbrella (off-table Sam 6, and on-table ZSU23/4 with the armoured reserve, although there was still some man pack SAM to disrupt any British air attacks).

The defending battalion is able to call in an airstrike from a flight of Harrier jets. It destroys the equivalent of a company of T64s, but this was not enough.

Make sure you read Keith's AAR to get all the action.

Scout Titans emerge from the builder's yard!!

Work and writing commitments have meant little time for painting lately, but I have managed to finish the two Epic scale scout titans that I bought from Forgeworld several years ago. I tried to pose them, but as you can see, one was more successful than the other, and even then I'm not sure I'd counbt the exercise as all that successful.

In fact, this has been a project I've simply struggled with, to the point where I managed to assemble the torso of one walker the wrong way around.. sigh!!! And even the paint finish is nowhere near what I'd have liked.  No matter .. here are the results.

Here are assembled titan forces to support the Space Marines. Why two scout titans? Because there were two in the packet. Will I see all three on the table? Probably not.. well not in a 3000 point game I suspect, but I haven't played enough to know.

Dwarf reputation partially restored!!!

Workload and flat camera battery (the one that powers the clock) have both meant not much 'gaming and not much photography these past few weeks. But... we are back, with a Kings of war game, Humans vs Dwarfs. And brought along his Humans ad they faced off against my dwarfs, both armies sitting astride a river.

This photo of the battle field shows  a little of the initial deployments, the Dwarves on the right, and the Humans on the left. I secured my left flank with a Warrior regiment and a steel behemoth, and m y right with a Horde of warriors. Andy held his centre with a thick line of bow bolstered by a couple of units of foot guard. His flanks were taken by his three units of knights.

The Dwarf centre advanced to a position where it's left flank was guarded by one of the two villages on the battlefield.

Andy decided to try a flank switch and move one of his units of knights from his left to is right. Arguably it cost him a victory because this unit was out of the game until the last move.
The gap in the human line marks the position of a unit of Foot Guard that was shot away by concentrated dwarf fire. Two of the supporting archer units had also disappeared under the weight of dwarf fire.

He advanced his right wing knights unsupported, and for the first time ever my steel behemoth was able to get its flame cannon into action.. YES!!!

Andy attacked the steel behemoth, but failed to break it. The behemoth and a unit of warriors then attacked the knights and destroyed the unit. This allowed both units to swing further around onto the human flank.

However a late reinforcement (the wandering unit of knights) finally arrived, attacked the behemoth and finally destroyed it.

The main battle lines never met, and after six turns, the game was  a draw.

The Dwarf king was slightly annoyed that his troops hadn't given him the victory he'd wanted .. next time!! Grumble grumble!!!

Eastern Front 1914 project again

With a solid start made on the 1914 Russian forces for early eastern front battles, I've been looking somewhat longingly on a box of HaT Austro Hungarians that some kind soul had given me several years ago. So, without further ado I've made a start. The box will give me a Great War Spearhead regiment, as long as I buy a box of HaT AH heavy weapons to go with them. They should complement the 1914 Germans quite nicely.

My usual painting style didn't quite work with the AH Hechtgrau I thought (I mixed it manually, by the way), so I decided to chance an arm and try block painting with ink washes and dry brushes. Here is the result on the first 6 stands. The jury is still out to some degree.. maybe with practice I can get a better result.

Origins of our fantasy games.

Even though I wargame the fantasy genre using the HotT (Hordes of the Things) wargames rules (and more recently the 'Kings of war' rules from Mantic), I haven’t traditionally been a reader of fantasy literature. As a university student I was a voracious reader of the sci-fi genre, but that was quite some years ago. My reading of the fantasy genre has really only included Tolkein, a little of John Norman’s “Gor” series (only a couple of books actually), and I guess that Frank Herbert’s Dune series came close as well.

Recently I discovered the writing of Helen Lowe. Helen describes herself on her blog as “a novelist, poet, interviewer and lover of story”. She lives in Christchurch, and has previously written books for a younger audience including ‘Thornspell’. In 2010  her first fantasy novel for an adult audience (‘The Heir of Night” Orbit Books, ISBN 978-0-356-50008-9) was published. Having followed Helen’s Blog (and taken some of her advice for aspirant writers) for some time I decided that I should read some of her work. It took a little while to track down a copy of ‘The Heir of Night’ (bookstores in post quake Christchurch are scarce, to say the least), but I finally found the book stocked in a great bookstore in Wellington.

I found myself transfixed by ‘The Heir of Night’. Helen has created a fantasy world vaguely resembling (as many of them do) something slightly medieval, but a world that is wholly absorbing. Helen’s skill at creating such a world, her skill at story telling in fact, deserves to be compared not only with writers like Frank Herbert, but could in my opinion equally hold its own with writers of the stature of Tolkien. Her writing is lyrical where it should be, fast paced where it should be, and demanding of the reader’s concentration where it should be. In short, it is a damned good read. I could hardly put the book down. It is little wonder that the book has been nominated for two Gemmell Awards in London this year.

Even if you only vaguely thought that you might just possibly consider maybe reading something sort of akin to fantasy, READ THIS!!

The second part of the story ‘The Gathering of the Lost’ is due out in early April 2012. I’ll be looking out for it.

Orc advance halted ...

Kings of War time again, and this time a largely Human force (Kingdoms of Men), with just a few Dwarf reinforcements, stood before the Orc hordes. The Orcs were keen to get forward and in to contact.

The Humans and Dwarfs had settled themselves on a largely defensive posture. Most of the line was composed of Footguard supported by archers. The right was held by a Dwarf horde supported by a steel behemoth. Knights sat on the flanks, awaiting the time to counterattack. It was all a matter of timing.

On they came ....

The men waited.

Orcs hit archers, there wasn't much resistance.

The Dwarves were determined to resist. The steel behemoth inched forward and blasted the orcs with it's breath weapon.

It was attacked by a winged kruger and a horde of orcs. They bounced off, after all it was a STEEL behemoth.

The main orc attack washed up along the centre and bounced.

Units counter attacked all along the line.

Orc units were smashed and shot away.

But still the onslaught continued.

The orcs made some gains, but as night fell both sides were exhausted. The orcs would withdraw to consider their next move, while the Kingdoms of Men licked their own wounds, and recruited once more to fill the empty ranks.

In game terms the conclusion came at the end of 12 turns (6 per side) with a draw. Considering the combat power of the orcs this was a reasonable result. The Kingdoms of Men had misused their knights, and so their counterattacks had been uncoordinated and lesss powerful than they could and should have been. But the infantry had stood their ground remarkably well.

For all that, a great game of Kings of War.

Northern France 1944 - more 20mm Spearhead action.

Nick and I played another Spearhead game in 20mm today. This time I composed two forces of approximately 450 points per side, with the game set in northern France in late 1944. The game was an encounter game devised loosely around Keith McNelly's Scenario Generation System. Each side was of approximately regimental strength, with around half a regiment of armour and some off table artillery in support. The British were supported by 3 battalions of 25pdr guns, while the Germans had a regiment of 105mm howitzers in divisional support, and a regiment of 150mm guns dedicated to counter-battery support.

The first view is of the battle field at the start of the game, with the Germans entering from the left and the British from the right.

The British left flank battalion. The British armour can be seen behind in support.

This town sector was pivotal to the British left/German right. The Germans were first to occupy it with 3 platoons, with the reminder of the battalion and the armour and in support. Nick assaulted with two platoons. In an attack the likes of which I've never seen before he won the battle for the town, eliminating all three occupying platoons... extraordinary!!!

The German armour sat in support of the battalion holding their centre. The opposing British battalion took fire from the 105mm howitzers, the tank battalion and the infantry battalion. Despite the cover provided by the stone walls casualties mounted there and on their own left around the town.

Nick then changed orders for his armour and began a push around his left. The defending British infantry battalion then exceeded both 50% and 66% casualties in the one turn, and took two morale  tests. It passed BOTH!! This British performance on their left was a day to remember.

The German armour began to push forward to take advantage of the flank that the British armour had presented as it attempted to attack the German right.

At the same time Nick now tried to apply pressure to the German centre by advancing. Nick was also by this stage beginning to make use of his artillery, concetrating fire from all three battalions. However as a consequence the German counter battery observer had been hard at work, and located all three battalions. Counter battery fire had begun, causing casualties on the British gunners.

I had decided to use my reserve battalion to try to take the bridge objective on the German left, and then to attack the open British right flank. However I miscalculated how long crossing the stream would take. This battalion took no part in the battle.

The game ended after 3 hours play, with the Germans scoring 5 victory points to the British 3, and of us having enjoyed a pretty good afternoon's game. Game play had been a little slower than you might expect as Nick learned the rules. The terrain had also hung up both sides, with both forces initially avoiding the stream, and so concentrating the deployment in a much smaller frontage than is usual.

All in all, a great game, and proof that SH will still work with 20mm figures and vehicles. My own plan was actually pretty mediocre, and I can easily imagine that with a few more games under his belt, Nick would have taken me apart quite convincingly. So, I may now need to base all of my old 20mm WW2 collections ready for some games.. sitting in those boxes is a HUGE pile of Russian kit... sigh!!

And here's Nick's version of events ...