Pravda: Capitalist Dogs Sent Scurrying

 

Capitalist Dogs Vanquished!

Tired of the constant provocation, today our brave and glorious forces crossed the German border and penetrated deep into the NATO lines.

The British dogs moved their armoured reserves to counter our deep penetration, but their vaunted new tanks were brushed aside.

Today Martin and I played our first game of Seven Days to the River Rhine, I laid out some terrain yesterday and Martin bought along some very nice extra pieces, so we had pylons, fields and an industrial unit to also fight over.

We would play the Meeting Engagement and randomised that we would be corner to corner across the diagonal.

The BAOR forces commanded by Martin consisted: three Challengers, four Infantry sections in FV432, one Milan team in Spartan, two FV438 Swingfire, one FV432M, two Scorpion. Martin drew these Tactical Advantage cards:

My Soviets were four T-64B, six Infantry sections in BTR-60PB, one Saxhorn team in BTR-60PB, two BRDM-2, one BRDM Spandrel, one ZSU24 Shilka. I had the following Tactical Advantages:

Having decided what should be in our reserves, the British took the initiative on the first turn and pushed up their Challengers and recce units.

 

The Soviets countered by grabbing some ground with their armour and deploying the Saxhorn team on a commanding hill.

I thought it would be a good idea to mark my Battlegroup commander by accompanying his T-64B with a BRDM-2u command vehicle.

First blood went to the Saxhorn team, the British pushed a Scorpion into some woods and attempted to call in Precision Guided Munitions on the Soviet tanks but this was countered by a Soviet Intelligence Coup, then the Saxhorn successfully activated  for a third time and destroyed the British light tank. 

With first blood to the Soviets the initial turn ended.

The Soviets pushed their armour up into the shelter of the row of houses one of them taking up an advantageous firing position.

A Challenger moved up the road to counter this and Kaboom! was taken out by the first tank shot of the game!

It did not go all the way of the Soviets though, by next turn the British commander edged his challenger around the woods and deadly fire destroyed a T-64.

At this point we took a break for lunch, sausage sandwiches if you are interested ;) 

A Swingfire successfully hit the T-64 that had taken out the first Challenger, but the armour deflected the missile, the return fire was deadly against the light vehicle.

The commanders Challenger was in a very advantageous position on the edge of the woods, the Saxhorn team had a clear shot, but, the Chobam armour should easily deflect the missles warhead, it was certainly my day for the dice, having got a hit, I rolled double nine for the penetration and another Challenger was done for! Fortunately Martin had the Junior Leader Tactical Advantage and the loss of the tank was not compounded by the usual additional setbacks.

To add to the ignominy the BRDM Spandrel whacked the third Challenger putting enough hits on it to force it to retire.

By now we were both bringing on our reserves, a Motor Rifle platoon was rushed up the table and deployed in support of the Soviet tanks. 

The Soviet commander grabbed one of the objectives, but was quite badly shook up by Carl Gustav fire from the woods before him. Concentrated fire from the command tank, another T-64 and the Shilka eventually drove the British infantry back, but not before a Scorpion had plugged one of the supporting BRDM-2

There were reports of a mushroom cloud in the distance, but they were wrong, it was blueberry muffins and coffee for our desert, thanks Victoria!

The Milan team were deadly and took out the newly arrived T-64B that had come on with the reserves.

Having already dealt with two of the three Challengers it was quite unsettling when Martin played another Tactical Advantage and whistled up another of the armoured beasts that advanced up the table and easily dealt with the BRDM Spandrel. It was now two Challengers against two T-64 and I was not so keen on those odds.

There was a large ridge across much of the deep table, and the British were massing a strong force behind it. I pushed up one of my infantry sections along the road, and on their third consecutive action they blasted away at the second Swingfire, failing to penetrate it, they had a fourth activation and plugged it dead!

The next turn this infantry section took out the final Scorpion with their RPG-18, and when some British infantry moved to counter them, they fell back into the industrial unit.

One of the remaining Challengers (the one forced to retire by the Spandrel earlier), with the new British commander on board, crested the large ridge and started a one-sided duel with my command tank, hitting it twice but failing to penetrate. A battle group moral test saw my commander remove all the counters and then a deadly return fire destroyed the Challenger. With the loss so far of three Challengers, two Swingfire, two Scorpions and their commander the end of turn roll saw the British retreat from the field.

The Soviets had lost two T-64B, a BRDM2 and a BRDM Spandrel.

Martin had some terrible dice both for activations, reactions and armour penetration. The Saxhorn team, probably my man of the match, had been targeted constantly by the FV432M and although they were by the end of the game on a 3+ to be hit had still never suffered a hit!

These chaps had deployed in their BTR-60's at the start of the game, and never been activated over the six turns, just contributing their chits to the greater good!

Martin and I have been preparing for this game since I was still in Wisconsin and it was great to finally get all the toys and terrain on the table. I'm sure we did plenty of things wrong in this first game, but it certainly did not disappoint.

No doubt there will be a slightly differing report in the Sun, published over on Martins blog.

2nd (Royal North British) Dragoons

Work on the Union Brigade continues with the 2nd (Royal North British) Dragoons otherwise known as the Scots Greys added to the collection.

The figures are all from the Brigade Games range and are lovely Paul Hicks sculpts although they do take a bit of clean up to remove all the mould vents etc.

Cavalry are always a slow burn for me and these fellows were no exception. I'd cleaned up the figures while still in Wisconsin, painted the horses while in quarantine and made a start on the riders a couple of weeks ago only getting around to finishing the highlights this last weekend.

I went for a mix of greys, some off of a cream basecoat and some off of a light grey base coat and I think they blend in quite well together. 

There is no Ensign in this pack but instead this rather splendid sergeant, who could be a suitable figure to represent Sergeant Ewart.

A close up of a couple of the troopers.

Lastly the officer and bugler.

I've now just got the 6th Dragoons to paint to complete the Union Brigade, although I'll probably want to get some infantry completed first.

Another small batch of terrain for Seven Days to the River Rhine

 

An order arrived from Debris of War this week, mainly walls but a few other bits and bobs so I sent a little time today prepping a batch.

This is about half the wall sections so far, the other batch are underway but are of the different type without a base. 

I also used some of the wall sections with some of the allotment pieces from Timecast to make a couple of small holdings for our games.

I particularly like the cold frames on the left hand one. Both are based on 120mm x 80mm 2mm MDF bases from Warbases.

These pieces will provide a bit more cover for our infantry in the Seven Days to the River Rhine games we have planned. 

First batch of terrain for Seven Days to the River Rhine

Starting a new project is great, but along with all the lovely shiny new troops you can buy, if it's going to be in a new scale then you'll also need to sort out terrain to play on.

I ordered a load of trees from Timecast with my last order for the BMP's and these have mostly been based up and can be seen in a few of the images, a few were set aside to use with the other terrain pieces.

I've put in another order with Timescale for some of their buildings, but in the meantime made an order to Arcane Scenery for some of the 10mm Battle Scale buildings they do.

They are very clean castings that take very little preparation. After a quick wash with some detergent they are primed first grey and then dark brown with the cream coloured rendering bought up from that in successive layers. I did the windows in my non-glassy-glass method, but it really does not show in these photos. Also the painstakingly painted dark green window frames likewise don't show up!

Once the painting completed I based them on Warbases 120mm x 80mm bases, added texture, lawn and paths and used a some of the aforementioned trees in a couple of of the gardens.

 The front kerbsides and driveways were done in a dark grey colour.

Another pair of the Battle Scale buildings were done up on a single base as a farm and stables. 

I plan to be adding some fences, walls and other field boundaries to the collection to break up the landscape more.

Also included in the Warbases order was some of their "Ponds" that I used most of to make some terrain bases for the woodland.

About half of the trees are from the Timescale range, the remainder are from a pack of Busch N gauge trees picked up from eBay, also sourced from eBay were the N gauge telegraph poles seen in many of the images.

The smallest of the Warbases ponds was done as a pond, it does not show up to well in this photo, but the water effect is done with PVA glue. It may benefit from a coat of gloss varnish when the rest of the paints arrive in my container.

Warbases also do a range of modular river sections so I picked up a few sets of these and purposed them as roads for our games.

The photo above is using about 90% of what I got painted so I've got enough for a good road system on a 6' x 4' board with enough spares to add some variety to the mix.

The roads were sprayed black then the white lines done with a gel pen and the shoulder built up with pumice gel. The roads were then highlighted in Black Grey and Neutral Grey and the shoulders given a quick drybrush of Iraqi Sand then some static grass added. 

The final few shots show some of the troops and vehicles in place to give an idea of sizes.

T-64 in ambush next to one of the buildings

Shilka air defence near the farm yard

BRDM2 takes a peek around the stables

Motor rifles dismount behind the row of houses

Motor rifles dismount behind the row of houses

Spigot team in ambush

There is enough terrain to be getting on with for a fairly open game, but once the other buildings, fences, etc arrive and get painted it should allow a lot more cover and concealment for both sides

Cold War Soviets for Seven Days to the River Rhine

The long weekend gave me a good opportunity to finish off the final few models for my "Seven Days to the River Rhine" Soviet forces. The main force was showcased a couple of weeks ago.

I was going to need some markers to track morale in the game so picked up a few packs of Soviet casualties from Timecast, they are based on 15mm bases from Warbases.

I had picked up some Engineers in the original order, but I'm sure I can find a use for these mine clearing and demolition teams I made up, maybe to mark objectives.

There is also a great set of dismounted scouts in the range, I think this will come in useful for our games having dismounted their BRDM-2 for a snoop.

Finally a trio of venerable BMP-1 armoured personnel carriers, they will come in handy for mounting that spare Motor Rifle platoon I don't have BTR-60s for.  

I need to get working on terrain now, those trees in this backdrop are just a start, I'm working on some more stuff over the next few days and hope to have those ready for the next post.