Sunday, March 15, 2015

Bolt Action Game

Had an opportunity to play in a great Bolt Action game on Friday hosted by my friend Ralph.  The  scenario was not only a great wargame - it had the additional special attraction as it was based on an actual action where Ralph's father was the American company commander!  The game went very well.  It was a large game in terms of Bolt Action, but it played very well and everyone had a great time.

In this scenario an American infantry company was attacking across a river to secure a small German town as a flank support attack for the main effort in another part of the Regimental sector.  All of the artillery and armor support was with the main attack so the Americans were on their own. 

Fortunately, the Germans opposite the attack were mostly Volkgrenadiers.  The Germans, as always, had substantial firepower in the form of light and medium machine guns and Sturmgewehr 44's.  Unfortunately, the Germans could not compete with the pins and losses inflicted by the much larger American squads with their Garands and BAR's. 

In the end the Germans ran out of troops and the Americans ended up crossing the bridge and securing the road in several places.

Here are a few photos of the truly outstanding terrain and figures in Ralph's collection.

An American squad crests a hill in an effort to overwhelm the German VG on the far side of the stream.

One of my medium machine gun teams providing covering fire.

German troops come out of the buildings and attempt to establish a defensive line along the stream they were defending.  The American flamethrower team in the foreground did not get to fire (unfortunately) as they took a substantial amount of fire from the Germans before they could act.
An American forward observer for the medium mortar attached to the company.


Two American infantry squads overwhelm a German VG squad opposite them.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

2014 - The Insurgency

Here are some photos of the insurgents and one of their vehicles.  I have three insurgent armies: The White Sheiks, the Black Terror and the Red Martyrs.  The armies have their own strengths and weaknesses - but all are ready to try and overthrow the Moan government!


A Unimog truck being used as a gun platform for a 14.5mm Heavy Machine Gun.  The truck is a Matchbox.  The gun and crew is from the excellent Liberation Miniatures range.

More from Liberation Miniatures - This time they are "insurgents" who are from the White Shieks terror cell.

The White Shieks commander and some support units.  All of the figures, as well as the Motorcycle, are from Liberation Miniatures.  The heavy machine gun is from the Stan Johansson range.

The Black Terror insurgent cell has occupied a small town in the northern part of DR Moa.  Figures from Liberation Miniatures.  The buildings are paper models from the excellent Paper Terrain line.  The buildings are available in 6mm, 15mm, 20mm and 28mm.  They go together very easily and I think they look fine on the table.  They have the added benefit of coming with partially destroyed copies of each building.  This adds greatly to the versatility of the buildings and fills virtually every building need you could have.

More Black Terror fighters in another building.

The buildings not only come with destroyed versions, there are also walls and out buildings as part of the set.  The walls are glued to foam core board and mounted on a cardboard base.

The Red Martyrs terror cell.  These figures are OOP (Heroes?)

2014 Statistics

During 2014 I played in the following Games:
Brother Against Brother - 4
Special Operation Forces - 6
Bolt Action - 4
Napoleon's Rules of War - 1
Aerodrome 1.1 - 3
Fire and Fury - 2
Pirates - 2
That's almost two a month!  Not a bad year!

I painted the following Figures:
20mm - 105
Rebased the following Figures:
20mm - 176
Vehicles - 26

Overall it was a pretty good year!


Another Two Months!

Where does the time go?  I can't believe it has been two months since my last post!  I have been working on hobby stuff though.  I have completed and based a total of 61 20mm figures and based a few new Matchbox type vehicles. I am also currently setting up a couple of game scenarios. So it has not all been a dearth of hobby stuff.

The figures I have finished painting were all African rebels and civilians. I will get photos up as soon as I can get some time with the wife's camera!  They all came out pretty nice.