WW2 Chain of Command Platoons in 15mm and some 28mm Ruins

I have been on a bit of a Chain of Command kick lately, having built up a whole lot of 15mm terrain and now needing some proper forces to fight over it.

Last time out with Chain of Command we used Greg's awesome Germans, but I felt I needed to get in gear and paint some of my own up. 

A German Rifle platoon, made up of a commander,
3 sections and a separate machine gun.

Each section has a rifle team made up of 6 men, a machine gun team of 3 men, and a junior leader. 
This section also shows the platoon commander with them.

Also, since I have been working on some Stalingrad terrain, I thought I should do up a Russian platoon as well, so that the Germans will have someone to fight once the terrain is done.

The Russian platoon only has LMG's in each section, and therefore less firepower than the German section. 
Even worse they do not come with a support squad for the section.

Each section consists of a junior leader, 7 riflemen, and the LMG with 2 crew.  Unlike many other nations
though, the Russian sections are not made up of teams and must stick together.

So, now I three 15mm platoons based up for Chain of Command (my Canadians and these two).  I need to get some support elements built for each of them now.

Also completed in the last few weeks are some 28mm ruined buildings for use with my WW1 forces for Through the Mud and the Blood.  While I picked them up long ago, I never got around to painting them until now.  I cut some bases for these our of MDF added some sand and rubble and got to work.  These buildings are a plastic set made for Bolt Action, and while meant for WW1 or WW2 games, they really can be used for just about anything.

The set can make between 3 and 6 buildings.  I chose to make 1 larger and 4 smaller ruins.

Based on cut MDF sheets these should stand up for a long while.  I did the outer area to match my Canadian basing for WW1, and the inner area in a different brown and grey to make it distinct from the outer area.

Prairiecon XXXV - Battle of the Chinese Farm, 15mm Yom Kippur War!

Forces ready for deployment at Prairiecon

Prairiecon XXV took place over the past weekend, and the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts hit the event in style! Dallas and I each ran a game on the Saturday. Dallas did one of his super fun Star Wars Miniature Battles, and I did a 15mm Yom Kippur War game.  The scenario was titled "The Suez Shore" and was set during the desperate fighting between the IDF and Egyptian armies around an old agricultural research station known as the "Chinese Farm". 

Platoon of M51 Shermans from Battlefront

For rules we used Dallas' excellent home made "Red Storm" rules.  I think we have been using these rules for post-WW2 gaming for something like seven years now? 

IDF Mechanized troops

Dallas also supplied the Egyptian side, as well as some great custom terrain pieces.  In all, the scenario pitted a small company of hard-hitting IDF troops against a reinforced company of Egyptians! That is one of the great things about Dallas' "Red Storm" rules. As we were discussing during the event, it may not have some of the flashier aspects you see in newer rules today, but you can put a pile of stuff out on the table and settle things in a couple of hours. Using 15mm figures and vehicles, we had almost 30 vehicles and 50 infantry between both sides engage across an 8' x 4' table.  Cool!

IDF Magach 3s

The scenario was brutally simple - the IDF had 8 turns to seize a house in the middle of the farm, and had to do it with infantry, not tanks. Both sides started with a small portion of the force on the table, and would roll to bring on reserves.  

Egyptian SU-100 tank destroyers

The IDF are approaching the target

The house in the centre is the objective

Egyptian AT-3 Sagger team, out to cause trouble - these things drove the IDF players nuts and they went out of their way to knock them out

SU-100s backing the Egyptian line - Dallas did an amazing job on these figures

Egyptian infantry holding the objective

T-55s approaching to support the Egyptian infantry

A Magach 3 knocked out of action...I'm such a moron, I forgot my flame markers at home - duh! But even so, this is similar to photos you see from the period...nasty stuff happens when something hits the ammo inside your tank...

PT-76 scout tank knocked out - but not before it had taken a Magach 3! Well done Byron

Dallas' Egyptian T-55s - these are from Khurasan, real beauties (if they are ever in stock)

M51 Sherman - a crowd favourite and one of my favourite tanks from any era - these puppies dished out abuse but had a "glass jaw", so to speak.  I love the 40k-esque gun, complete with bonkers muzzle brake

More Egyptian armour

Magach 3 moving toward the objective

This Egyptian HMG team managed to hold out for the whole game with tanks, shells etc. whizzing all around them

Magachs push forward to knife-fighting range...

The IDF infantry dismount from their M3 tracks and make their move!

A rather determined Magach - now supporting IDF troops who have captured the building! But what happened to the second story of the building?

The Egyptians throw everything they have into their last turn...if you look closely, you can see someone blew the top of the objective away...

The game ended dramatically - the IDF infantry grabbed the building at the bottom of the seventh turn, and held out while the Egyptians hammered them in the eighth turn.  One T-55 managed to land an HE round right into the building, removing the top story and several IDF troops along with it. In the end it was a win for the IDF, but the infantry paid a steep price - a "historical" outcome, one might say.

In the 1973 battle around the Chinese Farm the IDF took very heavy losses during some extremely tough fighting.  It was a crucial engagement, vital to securing the flanks of the IDF counter-crossing into Egypt that ultimately secured victory in the fighting for Israel. But it was also central to the shock the Yom Kippur War had on Israel's society and political class.  The Chinese Farm was a victory to be sure, but for a people grown very confident of relatively easy and sweeping victory in the wake of the 1967 Six Days War, the stiff price in blood paid to oust the very determined Egyptian troops from the Sinai was a rude awakening to some of Israel's broader geo-political realities.

I have to say the Egyptian players during our game had some pretty rough luck with the dice rolling...early on, I thought it was going to be a shooting gallery for them as they engaged the IDF tanks coming up the road - the but their dice luck dried up by the third turn, while the IDF players suddenly got the hot dice...that's gaming for you :) They also had a bad break with their reserve rolls...if that infantry platoon had arrived sooner, it probably would have been a different outcome!

Prairiecon seems to get better every year.  The crowd is excellent, there is a lot of stuff going on, there is a great venue, and Brandon is a great city.  It was awesome to see so many of the Conscripts make the trip to the event this year.  And I have to thank Dallas for his help in putting this game together.  He did the Egyptians, some great terrain and also took most of these photos! Very nice to have the Yom Kippur War project now expanded to the Sinai front - thanks dude!

Let the plotting for Prairiecon XXXVI begin...

Prairiecon XXXV - Star Wars Miniatures Jawa-pocalypse!

Last weekend, some of the Conscripts rolled out to my hometown of Brandon, Manitoba for Prairiecon XXXV (yes thirty-five). Prairiecon is indeed a "festival of gaming", featuring role-playing games, boardgames, and miniatures games. Conscript Greg and I have run games at Prairiecon for the last several years, and this year was no exception. Greg ran an amazing Suez game set in the Yom Kippur War, and I brought my Tatooine building collection for a Star Wars game.

Conscript Frederick built me some more amazing buildings which I brought out. The Falcon here is from Revell, and the terrain tiles were supplied by Greg.

I used the very simple and straightforward "Star Wars Miniature Battles" rules from Wizards of the Coast, as well as their pre-painted figures. The scenario was a typical convention special - each player controls a faction with 2-15 figures and a special mission (or three). In this game, I ended up with seven players and the factions were as follows:

• Luke, Ben and Threepio
• Han and Chewie
• Rebel Fleet troopers from the Tantive IV
• Sandtrooper detachment
• Greedo's brother Beedo, Zuckuss and 4-LOM (or as Greg calls him, "44 LOMbard")
• Utini and his Jawas
• A Tusken Hetman and his warband 

The various factions deployed across the table and carnage immediately ensued, with Perry drawing first blood from the Tuskens with his Jawa sniper.

Han and Chewie made their way through town, headed for the Falcon.

Jim (Rebel troopers) and Greg (Sandtroopers) ponder their next moves.

I made a couple billboards for Mos Eisley, just for fun.

The bounty hunters took a toll on the Rebels, but 4-LOM was finally gunned down.

Elsewhere, Ben had lightsaber practice on the Stormtroopers - preparation for the Death Star battle...?

On the Jawa front, the few Tuskens left alive finally made it to grips with their hated Jawa foes...

Only to be gunned down at long range by an opportunistic Han and Chewie!

The end of the game was cinematic - Luke and Ben managed to retrieve R2 and along with Han and Chewie, made it to the Falcon and escape! (minus Threepio, who nobly sacrificed himself to save Ben from the bounty hunters. Awwww...)

I think the players had a good time and the game looked swell, if I do say so myself ;-)  Another successful Prairiecon foray in the books! See you next year, Brandon!

Egyptian IS-3 in 15mm

IS-3 for Fate of A Nation

This beast is an IS-3 tank from Battlefront, released as part of their "Fate of A Nation" supplement for the Flames of War game. The Egyptians had these tanks in 1967 - I believe they were part of the arsenal in the infantry divisions of the Sinai Field Army. 

The last of the "heavy tanks"

The Battlefront model is a mostly-resin kit, with pewter accessories.  The resin casting is generally top-notch, with great details. There was a slight bowing in the hull on this tank, visible in the space between the skirts over the tops of the tracks and the main hull on one side of the vehicle.  If I was hard core I would have filled that with putty or something.  But this will be one of like at least six tanks on the table in a unit, so I am expecting the issue will be a lot less visible once I paint up its buddies to go with it.

You can see the seam caused by warped resin in the space between the track skirts and the hull.  Out of six models, fortunately I only had this issue on this one tank

The decals on the turret are from Battlefront - I think that might be some kind of eagle-style national symbol for Egypt/UAR? I'm not 100% sure - but it looked really cool on the box art, so I used it on the model.

The IS-3 looks spooky, with a pointed-near-prow on the front, ominous turret and a huge frigging gun (122mm, I think).  One would assume this tank is a total bad-ass.  But that's why I am a civilian.  I understand, bad-ass looks aside, these vehicles had a mixed record at best in combat.  The Egyptians had some reasonable use of them if they were dug into prepared positions - the thick front armour and heavy gun would give the IDF tankers something to think about.  But overall, this was an old tank by 1967 and its overall operability (is that a word?) was reflected in serious combat challenges.

122mm gun ready to rip into some M51 Shermans...

These things are deployed in company strength in Flames of War, so I have six of them to paint up in total. One down, five to go. They will get brewed up in no time at all by a combination of awesome IDF gunnery and the Israeli Air Force, but they will look cool before they get smoked out - an important factor in gaming!

Even More IDF Halftracks

Old-school rides for IDF mech troops in '73 - Peter Pig on the left, other two are from Battlefront

It's been quiet on the painting table for the past couple of weeks, as summer-ish weather has suddenly appeared (weeks and weeks late) on the Canadian prairies, following a winter of Retreat-From-Moscow-pocalypse proportions.  And even though I love this hobby, I love a cool glass of wine outside on the patio even more...however, Prairiecon 2014 is almost here, and I needed to complete my preparations!  Here are some more IDF halftracks.

Two of these models are mixed resin/plastic/metal from Battlefront, and one is a metal model from Peter Pig, with the addition of a ball turret conversion piece from Battlefront.  The Peter Pig one had been painted last year, and so it has my older style of painting "Sinai Grey".  They don't quite match up, but Sinai Grey always looks different every I see it in pictures anyways, so I'm not too fussed about it.

All of the stowage pieces are from a Battlefront conversion pack - they are very nice

The Battlefront models were OK to work with, but Peter Pig makes a much better M3 halftrack. You really notice it on the cupola MG in particular - the plastic .50 cal from Battlefront is heavy on the seam lines and light on detail. With hindsight, I could simply have combined Battlefront's excellent halftrack conversion kits with Peter Pig models. Oh well. But they are just 15mm, so it doesn't stand out too much.

I left the extra stowage off of the Peter Pig track...just a way to mark it as a command APC

Where I do give Battlefront more credit is the decals - the air recognition stripes look MUCH better with the decals than with my weak free-hand painting on the Peter Pig model (how hard is it to paint a white stripe? jeez Greg). The decals look a LOT better.

Ready to roll for Prairiecon!

I now have five of these IDF halftracks completed - enough to mount a full platoon of IDF mechanized infantry.  These will take to the table on Saturday morning in Brandon Manitoba as Dallas and I will be staging a scenario set at the Battle of the Chinese Farm during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. I am looking forward to another Prairiecon!