Liberating Novosty ...

It's late 1943 and the Russian summer counter offensive is underway. The town of Novosty in the Southern Front area of operations needs to be liberated, and the commander of an infantry division has been given the task. In support he has a break through battalion of heavy tanks (KV1s) two artillery battalions and two battalions of 152 mm howitzers allocated from the Front artillery reserve for counter battery fire. (This is a reposting of the original battle report which was accidentally deleted!!)

The battlefield seen from the south, the Russian forces entering form the left. The town of Novosty can be seen at the top of the photo.

The Russian forces deploying for action

The German forces deploy, the southern most battalion (top of photo) pushing forward to capture Novosty (just out of shot at the top of the hot), with the German armour pushing through the centre. The force nearest camera is the reserve.

The Russian battalion given the task of capturing Novosty advances to the town.

The Russian left, an infantry battalion with two of the platoons of KV1's in support swings around in to the flank of the German battalion assaulting Novosty

The German armour pushes through the centre

That Russian left again

The Russian commander refused his right flank. One battalion with the Regimental AT battery in support takes the small town on that flank, and digs in.

The Russian infantry have a firm grip on Novosty

At this stage the German commander decided to commit his reserve battalion: infantry with armour in support. Nick had made an error in his cross attachments, hence the single tank stand here attached to a full German infantry battalion.

However the German armour ran into an on table Russian artillery battalion. The Russian commander also decided to commit his reserve (an infantry battalion supported by the other two platoons of the break through regiment. Between them they made very quick work of the German armoured battalion.

At this stage an artillery battle developed. German 105s were finally brought down on the Russian left flank, but were quickly silenced by the Russian 152 CB battalions. In exchange the German 150mm CB battalion destroyed one of the Russian 152 battalions.. ouch!!

The actin on the Russian left was fierce.

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The German right flank battalion trying to advance in to Novosty has had to re-orient itself to defend itself against the Russian left flank attack.

However troops from Novosty advance from the town sector in support of the Russian left and the situation looks desperate for the German attackers.

The Russian reserve is also well positioned to bring down fire on the flank of the German reserve formation.

The position is lost and the German commander decides to withdraw his troops in preparation for another attack.

This was a great game. The forces were organised using Keith McNelly's scenario generation system, using forces of 350 points. The game was an encounter scenario. We kept the size down because the window of time available to us was limited.

I'm unsure of the size, as the loss of two stank stands severely impacted on Nick's battle plan. However he had made an error with cross attachment which, had this been done correctly, would have kept the armour in the game for longer.

Nick learned that he needs to concentrate his forces so that they can be mutually supportive.

I opted for a very conventional advance. I bought the main artillery as on board guns because of the communications difficulties that plague Russian forces. This paid off as none of the observer calls throughout the game were successful, but the one battalion firing over open sights decided the armoured engagement.

The force size may have been a little small, although we clearly avoided the 'track to track' problem that I am so desperately trying to avoid. Our next game will be 450 points. Keep watching.

Nick's account of the action is here.

Lost and the Damned outing #3

The Lost and the Damned seem to be perpetually lost and damned... funny that. Choosing to take on those tin men, the Necrons again, may not have been such a good idea, even though they say success in their previous meeting. This time we played 600 points, although we still applied the Combat Patrol force limitations.

On their right the Mutants ran forward to tackle the Necron left, supported by the two Traitor Sentinels.

The centre was held by the Chaos Space Marines supported by a unit of Traitors and a squad of Auto cannons, with another unit of Traitors on the left.

The mutants doubled forward ready to attack the unit of Necron warriors holding their left, but these were supported by a large Necron Stalker.. ooo darn, this may not end well. The Stalker assaulted the Mutants and the few remaining mutants broke and fled.

The Traitors on the left doubled forward to attack the Necron right, but those warriors were spoiling for a fight and after a round of Gaus Rifle fire they advanced to take the fight to the Traitors.

They quickly despatched that unit, but were then hit in the flank by the Traitors that had advanced in the centre.

The Chaos Space Marines assaulted the Wraiths that had emerged from cover to protect the central unit of warriors.

The Mutants disappeared in a wave of blood and gore, allowing the Necron left to advance. A battle developed between the Stalker and the Sentinels.

With Traitors and CSM's locked in combat, and the Stalker immobilized, the game came to an end. The L&tD casualties were significant with one unit of Traitors and the Mutants eliminated. All of the Necron units were still in place. The Wraiths had been reduced to two stands, and the Stalker had been immobilized, but each of the three Warrior units had lost only one of two figures.

IG Sentinels...

I run hot and cold on the whole GW and 40K genre. I still think the miniatures are fantastic, and (again) quite some time go, when I was running hot on 40K I bought two Imperial Guard Sentinels. I reckon these look fantastic, very Star Wars. I finally got around to assembling them last week, and finished painting them today (in between bouts of holiday marking). They may even get a run around on the table tonight, as Adrian and I have a smallish 40K game planned. I can't say that I'm strictly adhering to any Lost and the Damned codex, and I thought that just as Guard troopers etc might well have gone over to the dark side, why couldn't a Sentinel squadron.

These two 'vehicles' can double up as a part of either a traditional IG army, or as a part of the L&tD army.. jolly good show, what's next?

And now for something ...

... completely different. I placed these zombie figures on the pins ready for painting a week or so ago, and then got sidetracked with the 20mm Spearhead modelling. However they had to be done as additions to the 20mm HotT Undead army.

The figures have created two Beasts bases (Zombie dogs) ...

And three bases of zombie Hordes (these seem to be the 'flavour of the month' in our popular culture at the moment - no idea why,  I'm obviously missing something).

I have a bit of a plan to expand two of the HotT armies to three commands to play Big Battle HotT. The Undead and the British VSF are the likely candidates at the moment, with expansion 'sort of' under way with each of them. This one might take some time though with the other distractions around.

More tidying up ... "odds and sods"

It's been a busy hobby week amidst the 'wind down' from one heck of a school term. Pottering through the boxes of stuff to be done/projects to be completed (searching out anything else remotely interesting for the 20mm Spearhead project) I came across three unpainted GW Imperial Guard Kasyrkin figures that had apparently been surplus to requirements. So these three have now been recruited into the ranks of the Traitor army. Feeling a little lazy I painted all three in the jungle camouflage scheme. It seemed to be the one requiring the least thought.

I also discovered a solitary Imperial Guard officer painted, but missing an arm. He had come with the bulk lot of IG I'd bought already painted several years ago. No arm? Well not entirely 'armless.. but a complete sitter for a mutant.

One mutated arm (well, an Orc arm actually, but somewhat out of proportion for an ordinary human) and another mutant is added to the list.

Never under estimate the value of the old 'spares box' eh??

Now, I have some of those 20mm zombies and zombie dogs on the pins ready for painting for the HotT Undead army.

I must try to figure out why I get that dark area lower right on the photos when I use the flash.. I'm not obscuring anything with fingers, so it's a bit odd. Any thoughts?

German 75mm IG support: the 20mm Spearhead project rumbles on

While not yet finished with the Soviets, there are gaps in the support weapons available to the 20mm German force. This is important because at the level of command/play represented by Spearhead. It's the significance of support weapons, and the player's ability to use combined arms to defeat the opposing player, that represent the biggest appeal of the rules set. I love what call the 'layering' effect that the rules simulate where variety of weapons systems simply yet effectively build 'layers' of effect that cumulatively erode the effectiveness of the opposing force. The system is simple to play yet effective in simulating outcomes (I have always believed that rules sets are either 'means' focused or 'end' focused. Spearhead is 'end' focused.

I reckon that the Moderns set does this best of all because of the greater variety of support weapon options available to a modern army.

So, the other purchase that I made last weekend was a box of HaT German 75mm Infantry Guns. Spearhead OOBs place one stand of these with the regimental support weapons, so generally I won't need more than one or two of these on the table, but ... well ... there were four in the box, and ... I couldn't help myself.

The only downside is that, in my opinion, HaT, these aren't your best work. Here is the PSR review. The crew sculpting is not high quality, and this detracts from the overall quality of the set. However, they are German 75mm IGs, and you still don't see to many other sets of these around, so I'm grateful to HaT for producing them. They will do the job nicely on the table top.

Russian armour almost complete

My 1943 Russian Tank Corp attack list (using Keith's Scenario Generation System) requires two Tank Brigades which, with HQ stands, comes to 13 x T34 models. By ferreting around amongst the boxes of bits I found another couple of T34's, one of which had been given to me aeons ago (actually quite a few of these T34 models had been given to me by players 'giving up' on WW2 because they couldn't find rules sets that worked for them.. pre-Spearhead days, of course).

This is what I had to work with, with these last two models.

Here is the end result after the application of just a little paint today.

So here are the T34's required for the two tank brigades, plus the Tank Corps HQ. I did decide to leave two of the models in the original khaki colour. I may also base them all, as I like based vehicles.

I also repainted the T34 ARV.. I really quite like this model for some reason. Maybe I'll have to take an engineer detachment just to use it on the table top (and engineers offer useful factors in town sector fighting).

Finally, because they all came with two turrets (remember that? you got a T34/76B and a T34/85 turret in the one kit) I felt that I ought to paint up a few of the later turrets.

Cat hunters, Nick!!!

Those German 75mm IGs are almost done.. photos soon.