More Great War Germans plus an admission of fading eye-sight

I had a good couple of days painting over the long weekend and managed to get another 18 WWI Germans from the Great War Miniatures range available from North Star.

On Friday I had started doing the base-coats on a dozen of them and despite wearing my strongest prescription reading glasses realised that I was really struggling to focus. Fortunately, 'The Range' have opened a new shop in town so I decided to take a walk over there and spent £14.99 on this....

What can I say, things came sharply into focus. After a faltering start where my field depth was all wrong and I was splashing paint all over the figure I soon go the knack of it and think that these eighteen figures are likely the most precise ones that I have done in years.

I followed my usual recipe, however to add some variety I have started painting the Assault Packs on these in grey and the haversacks in German Camo Beige.

You will also see in the image at the top that I have started making some Shock Markers to go with them for our Chain of Command games.

Here are some close-ups. I'm quite happy with the extra detail I can get on them with the craft magnifier.

Chain of Command Espana double feature

For those of us who are not Christians Easter Sunday can be the most boring day in the calendar, everything is shut and there is nothing to do.

Thankfully over the past few years I have a bit of a tradition going, over the weekend Victoria and I usually visit family in 'that there London' so on Easter Sunday Victoria and Jasmin visit Camden ( I know I said there is nothing to do, but you would not get me doing that....) while I pop over to visit chum Eds in Pimlico and we get a game in.

This year we made a last minute decision to play Chain of Command Espana, and I had a small scenario in mind. Near the start of the war the Trades Union militia were distributing a cache of weapons, the local Guardia had arrived to confiscate them, barricades were thrown up and a nasty skirmish ensued.

We played the Attack on an Objective scenario with Ed commanding the Guardia bolstered by a unit of Falanists.

Things started well for the Republic, the local Falangist Militia led the Guardia towards the cache through an olive grove. But, almost immediately their Jefe was down, shot not once but twice.

However, the Guardia then put on their big guns and a Hotchkiss machine gun deployed to their rear soon started poring fire into the Milicianos who were soon breaking for the rear. The Guardia then changed their axis of attack to the left flank and soon overwhelmed the defenders there first with tear gas and a concerted bayonet charge.

With their defence in tatters the remaining milicianos created a bastion in the village, but assaulted from the fore and both flanks soon were overcome and the arms cache redirected to the Nationalist cause.

This was an emphatic Nationalist victory and had only taken about an hour and a half so we decided to set up another game, leaving the terrain as it was

This time I would use a Bando Nacional force of Regulares while Ed had a Ejercito Popular de la Republica force. This time we both had plenty of supports with a full complement of LMG and 50mm mortars in the platoons plus Ed had a BA-3 armoured car while I had a Panzer I, 70mm infantry gun and a preliminary bombardment.

The Regulares would attack in the 'Delaying Action' scenario.

Taking the first turn I rolled three-sixes so much for the preparatory bombardment. While my Panzer pushed up the road my scouts and a section of Moroccans pushed up the right. Soon the Panzer and the BA-3 were engaged in a game of cat and mouse which could only end one way, however, it was several phases of ineffectual fire before the Panzer eventually succumbed.

Having established a base of fire in the olive grove I then moved a jump-off point to join them and deployed the rest of my troops in there.

After a hard fight the Moroccans eventually ejected the EPR from the Taberna but by now had a section of their own wiped out.

 The game stalemated rather, the Moroccans proving hard to shift, but the BA-3 was invulnerable to my fire. Eventually though the EPR infantry was broken with the BN troops on a Force Morale of just 1. Very close run.

More photographs from the action.

More Mud and Blood with Chain of Command

On Thursday evening it was time for some Chain of Command WWI action again at the White Hart. I would use the Germans assisted by James W and James M would use his French assisted by Matt M. For a change the French would attack and the Germans would be the defenders.

We decided on the 'Attack on an Objective' scenario with the French fielding a 'Reduced Strength Platoon' rated as Regular while the Germans would field an 'Infantry Zug; also rated as regular.

Rolling for supports, James added an Adjutant and two off-table machine-guns to the French while I added a MG/08 on-table machine-gun and a sniper to the Germans, really to use the new figures I had painted.

We set out the table as shown in the photo and the jump-off points are as marked, The stars show the aiming points for the French off-table machine-gun teams.

The objective was the 'Bois' atop the low hill near the German base-line.

We both rolled very poorly for Force Morale, each force would start on an eight!

As you can see, it would be difficult for the Germans to grab the trenches as one had no jump-off near it at all, and the other two with suitable jump-off points were both covered by the supporting machine-guns,

The French started well with a 'triple six' in the first phase, two Grenadier-Voltigeur sections were deployed and in the next phase were running to the trench lines in my centre and on my left.

The French capture the first German trench unopposed

The first German phase was also a 'triple six' three phases into the game and we were on Turn 3! The MG08 deployed in the Bois on the hill and started firing into the central Grenadier-Voltigeur section to great effect while a Light machine-gun Gruppe made it's way towards the central bunker under intense fire from the off-table machine-gun. Eventually six men made it into the redoubt beating the French to that position.

The Germans make the central redoubt just before the French but under intense fire

Unfortunately, the French captured the position on our right and were directing rifle fire up onto the MG/08 in the bois on the hill. More French support squads deployed, one on a hill to the rear and one in a small bois on our right. The concentrated fire from these was taking a toll on the Light machine-gun Gruppe in the bunker so the Leutnant rushed forwards to rally the troops, unfortunately, just in time to join the Gruppe as it broke and ran back through the beaten zone of the off-table machine gun. The Leutnant and Gefreiter fell dead along with the remainder of the section.

The German CO falls victim to the off-table machine-guns

Unable to make it into their prepared positions the Germans deployed on the hill to defend the objective and their concentrated fire eventually began to tell, although the French did re-site one of the off-table machine-guns to concentrate on the objective.

Scrivs and James W wonder if their tactics are right?

With both sides fast running out of Force Morale the Germans took a gambit, the trench line on our right was only held by the French Lieutenant,, Sergeant and two Voltigeur, Turning our, by now pinned, machine-gun on the trench we then launched an assault with one of our Rifle Gruppe killing all the remaining Frenchmen in the trench and breaking their Morale, a close run game, but victory to the Germans again.

The Germans clear out the last of the French

This was probably the closest game we have ran so far and  think if it had not been for the poor Force Support roll by the French it could have easily gone the other way.

More images from the game.

Your chance to own part of the Keren game

As part of the Battle of Keren project undertaken by James Morris and myself I painted far more troops and tanks than a normal person needs (I'll not claim to be normal at this juncture).

I've kept a couple of goodly sized forces for myself and the rest has been broken into sections etc. and put on eBay along with my 28mm Warring States / Han Chinese and some spare Spanish Civil War figures.

You can find details of what is on offer here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/thatchapscrivs

Maurice with the big toys

On Tuesday evening Steve bought a small part of his huge collection of 40mm semi-flats to the club and we had a rather excellent game of Maurice set in the Seven  Years War.

We picked 100pts per side with Steve choosing the Austrians while I had the Prussians and would be defending against their massed artillery, cavalry and serried ranks of infantry.

If I recall correctly, the forces were:

Austrians

• National Characteristics 'Artillery Acadamy' and 'Cavaliers'
• Two Elite cavalry, two Regular cavalry
• One Elite infantry,  five Regular infantry, three Levy infantry
• Four guns

initial Austrian dispositions

Prussians 

• National Characteristics 'Lethal Volleys' and 'Oblique Order'
• Two Regular cavalry, two Levy cavalry
• Three Elite infantry, four Regular infantry, one Levy infantry
• Three guns

The Prussians deployed

In the initial stages of the game my artillery performed far better than the Austrian ones depite both less numbers and no special abilities.

Austrian infantry advance in the centre

As the game developed my Grenadiers in the wood put up a hard fight but eventually succumbed to superior numbers.

A Prussian cavalry charge on the right was beaten off by the Austrian infantry, while the Austrian cavalry on the left fared much better until I played the 'That was not on the map' card, much to Steves dismay

It then came down to the infantry slog in the centre and the Prussians eventually held the upper hand until I ran out of Action Cards while Steve had good half-dozen on hand. I held on for quite a while but despite being in a better position at the start of this phase of the battle was eventually warn down by the Austrian volleys.

View from the Prussian right

More a problem of my inexperience with the rules rather than anything else, must hand on to more cards for late in the game.

Steve has done a much better report on his blog.