More Lockdown painting

I hope everyone is keeping safe and well despite everything that is going on.

As I've been working a lot on my Wars of the Roses figures I decided to have a bit of variety and started on my Warlord Games WW2 Japanese.  The box comes with 30 figures and i'd hoped this would be enough to put together most of a platoon for Chain of Command but of course it isn't.  I'll need to invest in another box to make sure I have enough, especially for the hordes of knee mortar wielding soldiers.  And then of course I'll need some Command figures... and then some support weapons... and then some tanks...  It's a very slippery slope!!

The figures themselves are very nice although quite a few seem to suffer from being quite hunched over in  rather odd poses

There are 4 LMGs in the box which look rather nice

Every Japanese army needs at least one soldier charging with a sword!

I've completed a dozen so far but I do really need to get back to WotR Men at Arms or I'll be falling behind in the arms race with Eric the Shed and the other Shed Denizens!

Apart from painting I have been spending at least an hour or 2 each day in the park exercising with the dogs and trying to avoid all the other dog walkers, cyclists, runners and families who are also going stir crazy.

To get my gaming fix I've been experimenting with online games.  I picked up a copy of Lock'n'Load Tactical Digital from Steam as it was available very cheap.  This is a straight port of the boardgame onto the PC with a cheap starter set available for £4 

This only has 4 scenarios but is a good taster and more modules are gradually being released.  The game itself is very like Advanced Squad Leader in feel (although to be fair I have never played much ASL) but without the doorstop sized rulebook.  The only downside is that it is still in Early Release so there are still glitches being uncovered. 

A sample screenshot

The main one at the moment is that there isn't an obvious way to play against an online opponent...it should allow this but unless I've missed something, there isn't a way to connect so we are going to try playing this on Vassal instead..another system I'm trying to get to grips with.  I also picked up a copy of Tabletop Simulator as it was half-price (normally £14)...this is like a fancy version of Vassal as far as I can see but has the potential to allow you to play miniature games online such as Black Powder or Chain of Command.   It does seem quite fiddly and I have a lot of learning to do!!  It's a whole new world....

Lockdown painting update

Well, we're into week 2 of the UK lockdown and my wife and I haven't killed each other yet!  To be fair it isn't as drastic for me as it has been for many others as I already work from home and my wife retired early so is also used to being at home.  My day to day work is broadly the same but obviously face to face meetings have now been replaced with an endless cycle of phone calls and Zoom meetings.  I work in the charity sector and this has been very badly hit with a massive fall in donations so I do expect the 'furlough' discussion at some point in the next few weeks though.

Painting continues at pace with the odd distraction from PC games (Civ 6 is a real time waster!).  I've now completed 120 Perry Wars of the Roses figures.

Lord Percy's Rhythm and Blues Quartet

All infantry so far... a mix of Men at Arms, Bowmen, Billmen and some Burgundian mercenaries.  I'll need to add some Mounted Men at Arms and Light Horse at some point but I may have to take a break from the WotR and find something else to paint: my attention span is pretty short and it would be nice to work on something else for a bit.  Luckily (like most wargamers) finding some unpainted figures to paint isn't going to be a problem!  I might even work on my ACW Ironclads... I keep saying this and then finding excuses to do something else, not sure why!  I think next on the list will be this lot...

I bought these last summer and they have been left to mature nicely while I worked on my AWI armies and the WotR retinue (can't believe how much I've painted in the last 6 months...definitely more than in the last few years combined!).  I've always fancied building forces for WW2 in the Far East and eventually plunged in with these figures.  My plan was to build a Japanese platoon for Chain of Command and then put together some Chindits or Australians as opponents.  All my WW2 gaming has generally been Europe based so I'm not sure where this notion came from although I blame things like this from my youth...

The lockdown has also meant more hunting around to find things to watch on tv.  I can highly recommend The Mandalorian which is now out on the Disney+ channel.  It defintiely has a cowboy vibe about it and I loved this spoof trailer which appeared recently...

I've also just watched the last episode of Star Trek Picard.   I have mixed feeling about Star Trek series but this has been really excellent.  The ending was a little predictable (I won't say any more) but was still very good despite this and the tone of the series has been really enjoyable all the way through.

Viva Los Internacionales!

Last week saw a rare outing of my Spanish Civil War armies in a game of Chain of Command.  I still think CoC are the best platoon level game I have come across and the Lardies produced an excellent Espana supplement with details for all the factions involved.

We played out an Attack/Defend scenario with the evil Moroccan Regulares (boo!) assault in a small village held by some brave International Brigade troops (yay!).

The Moroccans were attacking from the top of this picture towards the bridge...

They deployed in the woods and faced fire from the Republicans in the village...

The Regulares had deployed a PzI and an infantry gun as support.  The tank was a threat as I hadn't been able to deploy my own artillery  for several turns.

The gun was particularly annoying as it took some very effective long range shots at the troops sheltering in the village.

The Moroccans were finding it difficult to drive the Republicans out of the buildings although they did see off a mortar section  which had carelessly deployed without it's mortars: the Republicans have to buy their support weapons like LMGs and mortars and I'd spent all my points on a pretty armoured car instead!

The Constructora  A/C finally turned up and sped over the bridge to provide some fire support:

My gun had also finally got into position but was quickly silenced by rifle fire.

The annoying Fascist artillery then took a long range shot at my armoured car and immediately knocked it out!

The broken mortar section fled back over the river...

...but the IBs still held the village and the bridge.  The Republican morale had dipped dangerously low but the Moroccans infantry was now beginning to waver.

We decided it was a close Republican win but only because the Moroccans didn't have the troops left to seize and hold their objective.  The Republicans would definitely need reinforcing if they were to remain in control for much longer.

Nice to get the armies out again.  I thought I'd re-based these to individual bases but obviously hadn't... most of them are still on 3 figure bases so I may add this to the to-do list.

This year we're off to sunny Spain!

On Monday I have a game of Chain of Command lined up, which I haven't played for some time.  This is going to be a Spanish Civil War bash with the dastardly fascists taking on the brave heroes of the Republic (clearly I have no bias at all in this affair!).

In preparation for the game I've finally gotten round to painting this Peter Pig armoured car.  I've had it sitting around for at least a year and, for some reason, never actually painted it.  It is a Constructora Field A/C, also sometimes called a Barcelona or Camion Blindado 4 x 2 No.8 and was produced in Barcelona.

It's a great model from Peter Pig in resin although it has a really thick base moulded onto it.

It does have a strong resemblance to an Anarchist version of a  Hungry, Hungry Hippo...

Ive also made up some suitable Patrol Phase markers for the game...

Belgium Day #2 11th May 1940

It has only taken us 4 months but Keith and I have finally managed to arrange game no. 2 in our Chain of Command campaign set in the German invasion of Belgium....sadly work and real life seemed to keep getting in the way for both of us.

In game #1 the Belgian and German forces clashed on the border and the Germans were eventually driven back, largely thanks to a plucky Belgian Lieutenant calling in a mortar barrage on his own position which caused heavy casualties to the Germans surrounding him.

Game #2 saw another clash of patrols near the border...clearly the Germans haven't managed to get very far into Belgium.  Our patrols clashed around the village in the table centre and the Germans were able to occupy some of the buildings with my Belgian infantry hunkered down on the far side of the fields, hoping the crops would give enough cover. 

In CoC you begin with a basic platoon and then, depending on the scenario, choose some additional support elements.  We made an initial error here as we should have made a single dice roll for this but we rolled separately which gave me more support choices than the Germans.  I chose a Forward Observer as the mortars had been really effective in the last game.  Keith had an off-table officer which meant it would give him more flexibility with his commanders.  If the Germans had been able to choose from the same values as me then they might have been able to bring on some armour which would have made a big difference.

My second bit of luck was being able to deploy my FO quickly and for his mortar barrage to come in pretty much straight away and on target, pinning a couple of German units although not inflicting too many casualties.  This continued to pound them for the duration of the game, being guided in by the FO who remained active most turns.

I then managed to roll 2 6's in my command dice which meant I activated twice before the Germans could (very flukey as I actually managed this a couple of times in the game), allowing me to occupy the terraced buildings.  This didn't work out so well though as the Germans were able to concentrate on the section in the building and eventually launched a charge backed up with a hail of grenades.  This resulted in heavy casualties on both sides but pretty much finished off the Belgian section who retreated back to the fields.

The village comes under mortar fire

I now decided to bring on the remaining sections who decided that going near the village was just going to result in getting shot.  The new sections sensibly decided to shelter by the fields and let the mortar barrage do it's job.  The Belgians can also field a Rifle Grenade section which added to the indirect fire, lobbing rifle grenades onto anything that moved.

After a couple of turns of mortar fire combined with long range exchanges of fire from the infantry sections the Germans concluded that they weren't going to get any further without taking even more casualties and began to pull back off table.  Round 2 to the Belgians although I suspect that the overall invasion is probably going a bit better for the Germans!

The Belgians deploy behind the fields

The Rifle Grenade Section

The Germans caught in the barrage

So an error with the rules and some lucky dice throws gave another Belgian win.  Mortars do seem very powerful in CoC although I think that reflects the impact the actually had on the battlefield.  It doesn't make for a very exciting game though and I think I'll need to try a different set of options for the next game...I've yet to unleash my motorcycle section or the armoured fury of the powerful Belgian T13....