"I died in Hell - Passchendaele" 28mm WW1 Battle Report

When I think of the Great War from a Canadian perspective, I most often think of the blasted Hellscape of Flanders in 1917-18. We've had it drummed into us from an early age that this was where Canada became a nation. From my perspective now I'm not entirely sure I agree with all of that, but the mud and muck sure are evocative of the CEF experience.
 

Conscript Frederick makes a point about the futility of unsupported frontal assaults

So, the Conscripts gathered last Thursday for a post-Remembrance Day game set in the Hell of Passchendaele, near to the 98th anniversary of the Canadian part of the battle itself.

Conscript Byron is having none of it: "ATTACK THERE!!"

We set up a scenario from "Over There", the Warhammer Historical supplement to the Great War rules. The book contains a good deal of background material on the various "warzones" of the Great War and actually features "Passchendaele, 1917" as one of them. We selected "Village Assault" from the list of recommended scenarios to play.

"Village Assault" is set up on a 6x4 table with a village sector of several buildings at one of the "short corners". The defenders (Germans in this case) set up there, whilst the attackers are allowed roughly twice as many points of troops, and set up anywhere more than 24" from a building. The Germans had a three-platoon company and two machineguns to deploy, and two Stormtrooper platoons in reserve.

The Canadians deployed their troops - a battalion of two three-platoon companies, a highlander company of two understrength platoons, and two machineguns - outside the boundaries of the red measuring sticks.

Away went the Canadians towards the outskirts of Passchendaele village.

Another angle - the objective buildings in the distance.

A platoon of Canadians picks their way through the shellholes. In the scenario, all terrain is treated as "Difficult" (roll 2d6 and move up to the distance on the higher die) but if "doubles" are rolled, the platoon loses that many models! Soldiers just fall into mudholes and are swallowed up...

Germans prepared to defend the village of Passchendaele.

I'd been waiting since summer to crack open these bottles of beer that I picked up in Belgium, at the Memorial Museum Passchendaele. It's brewed locally and helps support the economy of the region.

We shared out the two 500ml bottles amongst the 7 or so guys in attendance. I found it to be a pleasant Belgian blond beer with a typical hops note. Recommended if you can find it - at the Museum it was sold as a gift pack of two bottles and two 25cl glasses for less than 10 euros - bargain.

Back to the less pleasant aspects of Passchendaele, the Canadian continue to slog forward. Surprisingly few doubles were rolled for movement and only a few men were lost to the mud.

Meanwhile, in the other deployment zone, the Highlanders were picking their way forward through the trenches.

The Germans were ready to receive them and fire was exchanged across the traverses.

The frontal assault on the village was commencing also. The Canadians had managed to knock out a German machinegun with some lucky shooting and that helped them out immensely.

Meeting in the church basement for a reinforcing Stormtrooper platoon.

The Canadian objective was to occupy any village building at the end of the game, and they achieved that. One of the reinforcing German platoons arrived a little too far from the village to be a factor in the endgame, and the other was just overmatched by Canadian numbers. Although the Germans made a last stand in the church basement, time ran out on them to throw out the Canadians.
 

Although I like the Great War rules for their comfortable familiarity (they're essentially just a prior edition of Warhammer 40K, after all) I've found it difficult to balance the scenarios properly. Give the defenders too much and the attackers not enough, and it's a massacre with no chance of success. Give the attackers too much and things can go the other way. I'm told dice can be a factor, too :-)

In any case, we had a pretty fun game with some nice models on good-looking terrain with some friends and some beer, so I guess we'll call that a win all round.

More 30k Command Bits for the Sons of Horus

More command figures for the XVIth Legion

Well, work has been a bit nuts lately (and that's good), and that was followed by some down time to recover from a medical procedure, but I'm back now and continuing with my hobby nuttiness!  The nuttiness has something of a focus, insofar as I ever manage to focus on anything, and that is continued "Legion Lunacy" - more 30k!

Legion marine "chosen" - guards for the standard bearer; I love the fancy bolt guns from the stern guard box set

Up first, some more small-time painting. Prior to the big game we played in October, I had finished off some Sons of Horus command figures in Mark III power armour - a standard bearer, and a Legion Centurion.  To put these on the table, however, I needed to round out a little command group.  In the Legion army lists the standard bearer is accompanied by two "chosen" legion marines, a little bodyguard or sorts.  These marines have some slightly improved stats, but overall are just there to absorb bullets in the place of the Centurion and the standard bearer. This, apparently, is a cool job to have in the Legion...

Old-school plastic renegade backpacks...fit great with the Mark III armour...

Embossed shoulder plates, again from the stern guard box; just to reinforce that these fellow are a bit "special"

To add these figures to the force I scrounged up a pair of Mark III troops, and used some bits from a the marine stern guard box as well as a pair of old plastic renegade space marine back packs. The result was great - some semi-elite looking fellows, special enough to get shot in place of their boss or their standard. This will allow the command group to join the Centurion on the table in our 30k games.

Kurtha Sedd - painted instead as a Chaplain for the Sons of Horus

Another little addition for my Sons of Horus forces is a Chaplain.  This is the "Kurtha Sedd" figure which came with GW's newly released "Betrayal at Calth" board game, packed with a number of new heresy-era plastic figures (I expect we'll explore that game a bit in a separate post later).  In the story, Kurtha Sedd is an officer with the Word Bearer's Legion, the bad guys in the new board game, but at the end of the day the figure can painted to be part of any legion.  I thought he would fit in well with the Sons of Horus, so I painted him in the colours of the XVIth. My only change was to shave off some of the skulls, and cram a brass Sons of Horus symbol on the shoulder plate (which I then found was mostly covered by his cloak...oh well).

The new powers he has embraced help keep his cloak white, no matter the state of the battlefield...

The Kurtha Sedd figure is a very nice plastic figure, although cast in such an odd and bizarre fashion that it can really only be assembled in one way.  If you are thinking "hey, that torso would be great with my other marine parts", you are wrong - the amount of cutting you would need to do would render the effort kind of pointless.  All the same, it's very nice as is, and I like the idea of a "Chaplain" being part of the Sons of Horus forces.  I can imagine the spiritual ministrations of the XVIth Legion would be a little odd...

And in fact, while I'm thinking "Chaplain" he can represent many officer types - a Praetor, a Centurion, Legion Champion...there is a lot of flexibility in the fluff, and like I said, a nice figure. 

So Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is fast approaching, and this year my focus is going to be on science fiction stuff, and 30k in particular, so stay tuned for more on that...but in the meantime, check out the Painting Challenge - should be nuts...

Astronomi-con Winnipeg 2015: Army Showcase

Another year, another Astronomi-con. This time the event was held at the Holiday Inn Airport Polo Park (a refurbished HoJo's). This year's tournament is the 15th annual Winnipeg event! Astro as an event has waxed and waned over the years; this year's Toronto even (last summer) had its usual 50 or so entrants. However, Winnipeg's event was down to just under 20 players. The fact that it was Grey Cup weekend, in Winnipeg, had to be a factor.

40K 7th edition has been around for awhile now, and two things are clear: (1) I hate the Psychic phase, which adds even more randomness and extra time to games; and (2) the newer codices are very powerful and well balanced amongst their own units, allowing multiple builds. There were four Eldar armies present (including my own Swordwind force)!

Here's a quick view of some of the other armies on display.

***

Wes brought out an all-Harlequin force. Beautifully painted, the army was also hard as nails. Wes deservedly won Best Overall at the tournament.



Steve brought out one of the power builds of Codex: Eldar Craftworlds. Every Windrider jetbike you see is armed with a Scatter Laser (a Range 36",  S6, Heavy 4, gatling laser). Very fast, very hard hitting.



The Phoenix Lord Maugen-Ra leads Steve's army.



Mike brought yet another flavour of Eldar, with his Alatoic themed Ranger force.



Derrick has come back with a vengeance, fielding Tau.



I really love this beautifully converted Tau battlesuit. Derrick won Best Single Miniature with this piece.



Ben brought out a very well modelled Cult Mechanicus/Skitarii force.



Ben won Best Army for his considerable efforts.



Tom brought out another hard-as-nails army. With this Necron force, Tom  was in contention for Best General.



Kevin brought out an entirely new army this year. No Tiger Marines or Imperial Guard! These Tyranids are very nicely modelled.





Mike fielded a balanced Chaos force. The plane and artillery are nasty, but there's a lot of low-toughness squishy bits in this force.



Thomas won Best General with this Grey Knights force.The Paladins are very cool.



I have been playing 40K games against Lance since 1988! Some of these models date from that time period (that metal landspeeder is RT-era). The flyer is a cool conversion using parts from an IG Valkyrie.



I like how it holds a (magnetized) Dreadnought to drop into combat.



Greg brought out his Salamanders again.



He said he's been trying to beat me for 6 years; this year he did!



Ian brought out some Chaos-y goodness. That Contemptor Dreadnought throws out 8, Strength 8, AP 4 shots a turn!

Check Your 6! - Target: Portland

Some weeks ago I hosted another game of Check Your 6! This time it was a fairly large game, with Luftwaffe bombers and fighters opposed by RAF Spitfires. We were playing a modified version of the Target Portland scenario from the CY6! Battle of Britain campaign book.

Below, the German BF-109 fighters were piloted by Conscripts Brian and Kevin. I ran the JU-88 bombers flying in formation.



Below, a Vic of three Spitfires.



Conscript Frederick, and newbie flyer Malcolm ran the Spitfires.



The Brits drew first blood, erasing the German squadron leader in a hail of bullets. Frederick's wingman did enough damage by himself to auto-kill the bomber! The crew parachuted into captivity.



Both sides traded fighters as a Spitfire and Bf-109 went down, and a German bomber takes an engine hit. The Spitfire pilot bailed out OK; he was probably back in the cockpit the next day. The German fighter pilot did not fare so well, being killed as he tried to hit the chute. To the right of the frame, Duncan's ME-110 Zerstroyer fighters have shown up to party.



Brain, Kevin, and Duncan contemplate their moves.



The stricken bomber slowly drops out of formation.



The ME-110's and a couple of Bf-109's tie up the majority of the remaining defenders.



Frederick's flight leader damaged another bomber.



A Spitfire with airframe damage tried a tricky manoeuvre...



...but pulled its own wings off in the process! The Spitfire closest to the camera was set on fire by cannon fore from the German heavy fighters.



As another Spitfire drew a bead on a bomber, an escorting ME-110 executed a mid-air ram!



Both planes received engine damage and spun out of the fight. Meanwhile, fighters who had run out of ammo headed back to their respective board edges.



Most of the bombers managed to survive the gauntlet, dropping their bombs on Portland!



We don't play enough Check Your 6! It's fast to learn; both Malcolm and Duncan were new to the game, and picked up its basics within a couple of turns.