Challenge Submission #14 - Siberian Veterans and Soviet BA-10 Armoured Car

 

More Soviet infantry were completed for the Challenge, specifically 32 Siberian Veterans from the Warlord Games boxed set of the same name. The set consists of four identical sprues of multipose miniatures, enough to build 32 soldiers, plus two metal figures. (I diverted two of the plastic figures, and some of the Mosin-Nagant rifles to my Winter Soviets to beef up the numbers.) You also get a selection of metal heads and arms to add further variety to the figures, such as captured weapons, bandaged heads or hands, Eastern facial features, etc. 

These were all painted in my usual style, starting with a black primer. All the basic colours were painted using Vallejo acrylics, followed by a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone Quickshade. The end result is a platoon of three 9 man sections each with two submachine guns, a mix of Mosin-Nagant rifles and carbines,  a DP-28 light machine gun team, one Tokarev semi-automatic rifle, plus some hand grenades, Molotov cocktails, and a captured Panzerfaust, all led by an officer with a pistol. Add to that a sniper team, a soldier dragging a Maxim machine gun, and a Commissar with a speaking trumpet. 

 

Siberian Veterans defending the approaches to Moscow

Bandaged heads and hands

Bandaged hands and captured Panzerfaust

Captured MP40, Molotov cocktail, and bandaged heads

Sniper team with scoped Moisin-Nagant rifle

Machine-gunner pulling a Maxim and an officer with a pistol

"The man with the rifle shoots, the man without the rifle follows...."

Next we have a Soviet BA-10 heavy armoured car which is a 1/48 model by Uni-Model, another Ukrainian company stocked by my local hobby store. Like the Ace Model kits that I built earlier, these are very detailed and contain a lot of parts that I probably could have left out given that I am building something for the wargames table. The parts lack locating pins and holes to correctly align them, and the diagrams didn't always give a good representation of exactly where things were to be positioned. (One diagram actually had all the part numbers printed backwards. 😱) I also found the plastic to be a bit fragile, and a few pieces broke when trying to carefully cut them from the sprue. In the end I left off the optional tracks from the rear wheels and some of the tiny etched brass parts, and replaced the headlights and the steps outside the side doors with something more robust than provided by the model kit. 

Despite all the trials and tribulations, I eventually got it all together. It was primed black using an airbrush and then painted Russian green using acrylic paint. Highlights and decals were applied, and then the entire vehicle was given a wash of AK Interactive Dust. (In case anyone is wondering what 'А. Невский' means, it is for Alexander Nevsky, a medieval military leader who defeated the Teutonic Knights in 1242.)

 

The headlights were made from round push pins filed flat on one side

А. Невский on the side, just above the rear wheels

The plastic piece to support the step on the side was replaced with florist wire

 There is still another batch of Soviet Infantry in Winter uniforms coming down the pipe. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading.

Challenge Submission #12 - Soviet Army (Winter) Support Group and T34/76

 

Having completed all my PSC Soviet troops in Summer uniform, it was time to move to those dressed for colder weather in front of the gates to Moscow. I didn't get a huge number of miniatures completed this week as I have been experimenting with different materials to get a 'Winter look' to not only the bases, but the tank as well.

First up is a boxed set of Soviet Army (Winter) Support Group sold by Warlord Games. It consists of a Soviet HQ of two officers, a radioman, and a medic tending a wounded soldier, a Soviet Maxim MMG team, and a Soviet 82mm medium mortar team, all dressed for the cold in a variety of greatcoats, fur hats, felt  winter boots, etc. Each of these groups can be purchased separately, but you save $5 by getting the 'package deal'.

All of the minis were painted using Vallejo acrylics followed by the application of the Army Painter Strong Tone Quick Shade. This is pretty much what I have done up to this point with the Summer Soviets. I used AK Diorama products 'Snow' and 'Snow Sprinkles' on the bases to give them that frosty look.

 

Soviet Army (Winter) Support Group

Soviet HQ (Winter)

Soviet Maxim MMG and 82mm Medium Mortar teams (Winter)

 The second item is a 1/48 scale Tamiya T34/76 in Winter camouflage. The kit was very easy to assemble, even though a lot of the track comes as individual links. The chassis is made of metal, so it actually has some weight to it. 

Once assembled, the tank was primed dark brown, and then painted olive green using Tamiya acrylic paint. Since I already have four T34/76s in various shades of green, I wanted to put this one in Winter colours to go along with my Winter Soviet infantry. I first applied AK Chipping Medium to all the areas that I thought would get a lot of wear and allowed it to dry thoroughly. I then applied a heavily diluted coat of white acrylic paint to give it the appearance of whitewash that was starting to wear off. Once that was completely dry, I used water and a brush to remove the chipping medium to reveal the olive paint underneath. Finally I applied AK Interactive Splattereffects 'Wet Mud' to the tracks and underside to make it look like it had been driven during the Rasputitsa. I may decide to add more 'Wet Mud' to the road wheels, but I am calling it done for now.

 

 This is my first foray into Winter figures, and I am happy with the results. Now that I have the method worked out, I will be ramping up production to meet the quotas of Stalin's latest five-year plan.

Battle Report - Flames of War, 15mm WW2

Tanks on fire during a Flames of War game played last week

It's been quiet for a while on the Fawcett Avenue gaming front, with several of the fellows making a visit to Europe for the Waterloo anniversary, and others taking up opportunities to enjoy our brief (and below standard) summer - any respite from the hell of winter on the Canadian Prairies must be enjoyed to the maximum extent possible.

Forward for the Rodina!

But we are still getting some gaming in - last week conscripts Byron and Dallas stopped by for a game of "Flames of War", the popular 15mm WW2 gaming rules. The game was set on the Eastern Front in the summer of 1944, and the scenario was "hold fast", one of the basic scenarios from the rule book.  The Germans would be hoping to hold back a Soviet tide - not very original, but basic and fun. We played it straight from the book with one modification - I left out the "ambush" for the defenders.  We don't play much Flames of War, and I was trying to keep it simple.

The Soviet tidal wave - part 1

Soviet tidal wave - Part 2 - a Maxim team in the foreground is trying to give some covering fire

The Soviet battlegroup was an infantry battalion - two big companies of infantry backed with mortars, light anti-tank guns and a whole company of T-34/76 tanks.  They had the services of a battery of 122mm guns (kept off table, because that sort of stuff should just not be on the table).  The Soviets would (of course) be the attackers - Dallas took command.

Company of T-34s roars forward

Nervous German grenadiers dug in and waiting for the Soviets to falter...is that possible?

The German battlegroup was a worn down motorised infantry company - two grenadier platoons, a section of 8cm mortars, a pair of MG42s, two PaK 40 anti-tank guns, a battery of StuGs and a platoon of Panzer IVHs.  The Germans also got some off-table fire-support in the form of a battery of 10.5cm guns, but I limited the ammo to just four fire missions. Byron took command of the German side.

Iron Crosses to be handed out...

Nobody left to award them to...the Germans knocked out one T-34 with a Panzerfaust, but the infantry are overrun!

Both battlegroups worked out to about 1400 points a side. The table was 6' x 4', with the short edges as the base for each side.  Two objectives were placed in the German half of the table, and if the Soviets could capture one of them, the jig was up and the Germans were done. Straight up, all this German stuff would mow down the Russians in short order - but the problem for the Germans was they didn't get all of this stuff at first - half of it was in delayed reserve. Byron had to decide which units he thought could hold out the best under the tide of Russian steel, and hope for the best.

StuGs arrive to even the odds for Byron

Byron put his two infantry platoons, his mortars and his PaK40s on the table. They got to start the game "dug-in", concealed and gone-to-ground.  The attack was on!  The Soviets got to pile their entire force on the table, 18" away from the centre line, and they started with the first turn.  Dallas unleashed the Russian horde!

The T-34s feel the effects of shooting from the German StuGs

It was pretty cool - scads of Russian troops roared toward the Germans, firing as they went, but having little effect as the Germans were dug in and hard to hit. Their artillery barrages did a lot of damage, however, causing a lot of pins.

Byron's commanding officer directs the battle

Byron and the Germans replied with withering fire, but the big Soviet infantry companies are difficult to slow down (one of them had 16 stands in a single mass - yikes!).  And his PaK40s could not draw a bead on the T-34s as they roared up the flank. Soviet losses mounted, but not enough to seriously stem the advance.

Remnants of a mauled grenadier platoon try and add their fire from the flank

By the fourth turn the Soviets were in position to launch assaults, and it got really bloody for the Germans, as one of the Grenadier platoons was crushed by Soviet tank treads, while the second one was mauled with point-blank fire.  One of the Pak40s was overrun.  The Soviets captured an objective, and things looked grim.  

Panzer IVs add their fire against the T-34s...suddenly the tide is turning!

But then reserves arrived for the Germans! Byron's StuG battery appeared and blasted the Soviet tank company to pieces over turns five and six.  The flaming wrecks were not able to hold the objective. Dallas' infantry horde tried to follow into the breach, but once the T-34s were gone, the Soviets could not grapple with the armour - the 45mm anti-tank guns were trailing along in the assault, but were not in position to assist, and the artillery could not get ranged in. Once the Panzer IVs showed up, that was that - a close and costly win for the Germans...the Panzers showing up to assist this company likely meant doom for some other poor force elsewhere on the line, but hey - that's the Eastern Front for you...

The Germans recapture the objective!

I'm something of a gaming snob, and many aspects of the Flames of War game cause a wrinkle in my proverbial nose - the overuse of the word "army", the hub-to-hub tanks, the easy access to rare assets like heavy tanks, air support and anti-aircraft, the presence of heavy artillery on the table, the specials rules...blah blah - many more articulate gamers than I have outlined these issues elsewhere. And yet...and yet.  You know what? It's still a fun game.  Really, really fun. More and more lately the "hey, let's just have a fun game" side of my gaming brain has been kicking the sh!t out of my "oh, this just won't do" side of my gaming brain.  For throwing down a Thursday night game, Flames of War is a good time.

Infantry race in to fill the gap, but they falter in the fact of fire from the German armour...

And from that perspective, Flames of War is a lot of fun.  I'm sure I screwed up some of the rules, but overall we had a 1400 point game in just over two hours - tons of carnage and wreckage on the table, and it was all good.  Of course this is not the complex, immersing and thoughtful experience you can get with a game like Chain of Command (which is also excellent), but I have to say the more I play Flames of War, the more fun it is (as long as I can keep it simple). 

Thanks to Byron and Dallas for coming out to play, and to Byron for helping me test out the scenario (and practice a bit with the rules) during a short game earlier in the week.  Also a big thank you to Dallas for letting me use his terrain bits again :)

Prairiecon 2015 Game One - Battlegroup Fall Of The Reich

A table dotted with wrecked tanks - that's my kind of game!

Summer is (sort of) here again in the Canadian prairies.  And while the temperature projections are dismal by the standards of our usual glorious weather, there are still some excellent summer traditions. One of those is PrairieCon, the annual gaming event held in Brandon, Manitoba. "Gaming event" is probably a drastic understatement - while Prairiecon is not a huge event size-wise compared to other conventions out there, it has a great reputation and history in the community.  Dallas has a much longer history with PrairieCon than I do, so he is much better at explaining the event and I will leave that to him. But as near as I can figure this is my tenth year at Prairiecon, and it continues to get better!

Commanders confer before the game - on the left side of the photo is the Russian table edge, and the German one is at the opposite end, behind the town.

The edge of Dolgelin - the train station at the upper left and and road section in the bottom right of the photo are the objectives for the Soviet attack

Soviet artillery had already hit the Germans before the battle started

The Soviet advance begins - the train station is to the right side in this photo.

Soviet advance on the left side - T-34/85s and infantry

The Fawcett Avenue Conscripts like to make a visit to Prairiecon every year to play some games and run a couple of games as well.  This year we hosted two games - a WW2 game and a Star Wars space battle game. This (obviously) is the after-action report on the WW2 game: Battlegroup Fall of the Reich.

The only early break for the Germans - this IS-2 hit a mine in the road and was knocked out!

The "Battlegroup" rules are published by Iron Fist Publishing. I will say the rules overall are pretty good, but the books themselves suffer from what I refer to as "British Rule Book Syndrome". Symptoms include beautiful production values, fantastic background information, baffling explanations of simple rules mechanics, quirky approaches to what should be simple rules mechanics (armour ratings expressed as a letter, while everything else is a number), odd decisions on content (the basic rule book does not provide an example of tank vs. tank combat resolution), painting tutorials that are so complex they are only useful for people who are already expert painters, scenarios only suitable if you have an enormous collection of figures, and Kafka-esque layout decisions that have you swearing endlessly (case in point - the stats for the tank will mention what gun it carries, but the stats for said gun are elsewhere in the book, on a big table of guns - ~@#@#@!!!!).

Soviet assault crosses the railway line - T-34/85s in the lead.

"British Rule Book Syndrome" does not render the rules themselves bad - it just makes you a little insane.  Black Powder is a good example of this. That is a bloody fantastic game, but the rule book, even though beautiful, makes me bonkers at times. I don't enjoy "Battlegroup" as much as I do "Black Powder", but "Battlegroup" is still a fine set of rules.

This King Tiger tank missed so much we decided an appropriate token was needed to shame the crew...

A 37mm Flak gun team waits for the attack - the half track is a supply vehicle, a neat feature in the Battlegroup rules.

The WW2 scenario for Prairiecon was adopted on one presented in the "Fall Of The Reich" book - "Holding Dolgelin Station".  The battle takes place during the final Soviet offensive in 1945 on the Eastern Front, the drive on Berlin.  The Germans made a desperate stand as the Soviet army groups crossed the Oder River.  Dolgelin is a village at the edge of the Seelow Heights overlooking the Oder river valley and here the King Tigers of the 502nd Battalion clashed with the Soviet spearheads looking to break through.  This is, of course, something many WW2 gamers like me enjoy - an excuse to use King Tigers :)

The Soviets approach the train station, one of the key objectives.

"Battlegroup" rules are agnostic on scale, although generally driven toward 20mm.  We used 15mm figures for the game, and it works just fine.  I have been painting a lot of individually-based 15mm infantry for skirmish gaming in this scale, but I found in playing "Battlegroup" that the figures based in groups (for games such as "Flames of War") work just fine or even better, as the players find it much easier to move the blocks of infantry around. My preference is still individual basing, but you can't argue with the people actually playing...

The Soviets have blasted the train station, and prepare to mount an assault...but...

The actual scenario from the "Fall of the Reich" book is (consistent with the British Rule Book Syndrome) a very, very large game and even though I have a sizable 15mm collection I still couldn't pull it off on as they have suggested.  No worries, though - it's still great inspiration and we just slimmed it down for Prairiecon.

The train station continues to sustain further damage, but note the dreaded "Scottish number" and the pin token - the infantry are pinned by German MG fire and the assault doesn't go in.

The German forces for my version of the game comprised a Volksgrenadier platoon, an MG42 team, a PaK40, a 37mm AA gun, a lone Marder III and a panzerschrek team.  They were bolstered by three mighty King Tiger tanks, lords of any WW2 gaming table.   Their objective was grim and simple - hold to the end, break the morale of the Soviet attack and buy more time for Berlin...Conscripts Mike and Cam took command of the Germans.

This officer shamed the motherland by fleeing the battlefield - he will be shot for cowardice as an example to others...

The onrushing force of Soviets was suitably enormous - a platoon of IS-2 tanks, a company of T-34/85 tanks, a platoon of hard-ass veteran infantrymen and a platoon of regulars, backed by a maxim MG team and battery of 152mm guns off table.  The Soviets could win two ways - capture the train station and the crossroads at the end of the village, or just break the morale of the Germans.  Conscript Dallas and a Prairiecon visitor took command of the Soviets.

The Tiger tanks are finally finding the range...and many Russian tanks pay the price. The Volksgrenadiers in the church chipped in with a couple of panzerfaust shots as too.

The premise of the scenario is that the King Tigers of the 502nd (acting as a reserve) are moving toward the front, which they still think is further east, closer to the Oder, but they are surprised to run into a Soviet spearhead just outside the town, where a hasty defence is organized.  The Soviets would start well on to the table (18" on), and the King Tigers would move on to the table one per turn.  The Germans would be under Soviet guns immediately.

The motherland avenged! The train station falls, and the IS-2s move into the village.

The Soviets started out big, hammering the Germans with artillery and suppressive fire from the 122mm guns of the IS-2s.  The Germans lost their Marder, PaK40 and panzerschrek team in short order - ouch! It looked like a walkover for the Russians. It got a little grimmer for the Germans in the next couple of turns, as the King Tigers suffered from abysmal luck on the gunnery dice, missing again and again against the Soviet tanks!  The only early success for the Germans came when they pulled a "mine strike" token, and an IS-2 was knocked out on the road.

The train station has fallen, and the IS-2s move past the objective - note the carnage on the other Soviet flank at the top of the photo

The Russians, however, got a nasty surprise when they attempted to capture the train station (which the Germans had fortified).  They blasted it with artillery from off-table and with direct fire from the IS-2s, but Mike was on fire with the saving throws, and the squad in the building refused to stay pinned down.  The Russians ultimately captured the building in a bloody close assault, but it cost Dallas an entire infantry platoon.

IS-2 blasting away at targets in the town.

Further carnage was wrought by the German MG42 team stationed in another building on the outskirts of town.  The machinegun devastated the other Russian foot platoon, while the King Tigers (for once) finally found the range, and began to knock out T-34s with ease.  The losses started piling up on the Russian side.

End of the war for this 37mm German flak team...

The Russians resorted to heavy bombardments from their off-table artillery, and these took a toll on the Germans.  Finally the pin markers and casualties started to add up for the Germans, and their battlegroup ultimately broke in the end, but not before extracting a fearful punishment on the attacking Soviets.  All in all, a very suitable ending considering the setting.

The King Tigers blast away - note that one got tagged with an "out of fuel" token; these tokens are a great feature of the Battlegroup rules

Overall I found the "Battlegroup" rules to be pretty good, if maybe not as good the the hype online makes them out to be.  There are some excellent mechanics in the game, particularly the battle rating system and the random events. There also some mechanics I ignored, like ammunition limitations in the tanks.  This is, of course, a very realistic concept but the game already calls for enough documentation and I wasn't about to bother keeping track of ammunition in 25 tanks and anti-tank guns.  The rules can be confusing at times - in particular I find the off-table support process ponderous, and the means for organizing the off-table support in the army lists is confusing and poorly organized.  Navigating the book will make you want to scream, but overall it's worth it!  And the campaign background and presentation is excellent - even if the scenarios they offer up are not ones you will be able to put on easily, they are fantastic inspiration.

Some of the other games happening at Prairiecon 2015.

Thank you to Dallas and Mike for playing, and to Conscript Cam who came down to Brandon to join our games - it is always great to see Cam! A very special thank you here to Dallas for taking nearly all of these photos and for lending his terrain to the game, particularly his incredible warmat from Barrage Miniatures, as well as excellent grass fields and trees.  And congratulations to the Prairiecon organizers for another outstanding event! I look forward to next year.