26th Feb Club Meeting

Our latest club meeting went well...especially for me! We had eight members attend playing three games, a very healthy situation. Mark, the winner of the Miniature Wargames Readers Painting competition (and as it turns out joint second place holder too), brought the mag along for me to see and the two figures he sent in. Slight apology to Mark here as I thought he had sent in two of the figures from the set he painted a while ago; he actually painted up two new figures specially. He was given a bit of a ribbing, obviously, but the figures were very nice and we were all pleased for him...perhaps also a little proud that one of our members won too. So once again, well done Mark, good job mate.

The Operation Squad game
Mark and I played Operation Squad, me with my Italian Paras (and the Brixia mortar :) ) and Mark used his newly finished British Paras. Mark was at a slight disadvantage as he had not been able to work out his full 500 point allowance...I had offered to do this but couldn't find the bloody rule book, nor was there a list on the Op squad forum! We cobbled something together and he basically used my British para list. The problem for the Italian squad I have is that they are almost exclusively armed with shorter ranged machine guns (my choice), this means that you have to use them quite aggressively and can therefore run into trouble. The mortar also has to be directed by the Sergeant who must not be anymore than 20cm away, so that he can shout the range, target and direction etc. This can be a little limiting so you need to have a bit of a plan from the outset; as you should anyway.

I decided that the mortar was to be central to the plan and have the rest of the squad deployed to cover it and take advantage of any damage it managed to do. I managed to move it up into a field just behind a ruined house whilst the Sergeant moved forward to a hedge lined road to act as spotter. My Breda MG covered the main road of the hamlet we were fighting over from the edge of a wood This was itself protected by three squad members deployed forward of it and all three were hidden. the rest of the squad was moved up the the same hedge line as the Sergeant, to support him and cover the left flank of the mortar position. I was quite pleased with the dispositions as Mark's figures moved forward. Mark focused upon another large ruined building in front of my lines and his end of the long wood that concealed by Breda MG. I think he was hoping to hold a strong centre whilst he swept the woods, thus keeping my right flank troops out of the game. This actually suited me as it would allow my mortar a free rein.

First blood fell to me and my Breda MG as Mark tried to move a figure around the house and up to the main road. The Breda team managed to spot the figure (a test they had to pass before they could even think of shooting) and won the initiative. Of the four shots they were allowed it was the very first one that killed the British Para outright! Poor Mark rolled some appalling defence dice.
I took out a second Brit para, who was foolish enough to wander into the field opposite the hedge line, with one of my figures covering the mortar; although that figure was then taken out by the British Bren gun positioned in the house. this all happened during one of the frenetic episodes of multi-figure interaction that makes Op Squad the great game that it is. You work out who is trying to do what and to whom (up to three figures from each side) and then roll to see the order in which those actions occur. My hedge line guy went first and killed the para in the field. My Breda MG was supposed to go next but as the target para was killed by the hedge line guy the Breda lost its go. The dead British para was to go third, but was now dead, so the last figure to come into play was Mark's Bren gun. It had targeted my hedge line guy and took him out with a couple of shots.That Bren gun was well defended and placed to cover any attack I made against it...but I have a mortar!

I moved my Sergeant forward and successfully managed to spot the Bren gun in the building before communicating this to the mortar team. As Mark had already activated the Bren gun team he could not now move them, when it was my turn to activate a figure I chose the mortar team! To hit with a mortar you need to roll 1d6 and score equal to or less than the figures Tactical Value, in this case a four. The Brixia is a light mortar so fires shells half the size of ordinary mortars in the game but, it has a greater rate of fire so gets two shots! The first shot rolled a five, so the round missed. You then have to roll a d10 to see where it went, double the number rolled for distance off and follow the pointy bit of the D10 to see in which direction; that one fell short. Shot two was a direct hit! The radius of the burst circle for this mortar is only 10cm but was more than enough to catch the Bren gunner and his assistant. The gunner was taken out but due to crappy die rolls on my part the assistant wasn't even touched...a bit deafened perhaps. I was one casualty off making Mark make a morale check but, club nights having the time restrictions that they do, the game wound down.

This was a good game but it did raise issues that we now need to check, principally, whether a figure that makes a 'move & fire' move that then doesn't fire can fire if an opportunity arises later in the move.

Blood, Bilge & Iron Balls
Andy and Dave G. played Blood, Bilge & Iron Balls, a reduced version of one of the scenarios in the rule book. A British fleet is trying to stop a number of French transports and their escorts escaping from port. Dave chose to be the Brits and immediately fell fowl of a changing wind direction. He found it very difficult to keep station as the French approached and this had an effect on his firing. The French, on the other hand and as the fact that they were making an escape attempt in the first place suggested, were taking full advantage  of the wind direction. Andy, the frogy commander, said this of the game;

'One of the French 74's got off table, as did one of the transports, the others following in line astern. Subject to any damage Dave might have inflicted I think the remaining merchants would have escaped in another turn or two. The other French 74's were still on table, at close range with the British.

Overall I think the French can claim victory, none of the men o' war had any significant damage; a couple of the merchants had lost some cargo due to damage inflicted, and one was running out of crew.

HMS Ardent was the ship caught by the stern rake, she was completely dismasted and had, I think, several fires started. Not surprising with a total of 23 damage cards drawn (6 hits @ 3 cards/hit because of the Stern Rake, one of which was a Joker = another 5 cards). A couple of the other RN ships had taken some damage, but I don't know the details.'

Sounds pretty good to me Andy, quite a convincing win for the French. That stern rake was pretty nasty, as stern rakes should be of course. That many hit cards at once could sink a ship or leave it a smoking ruin...always a laugh if it isn't your ship being hit. The Brits were forced to make a series of tricky manoeuvres to try and keep their guns trained on the enemy but this is easier said than done in a battle. The guys had fun and became a little more familiar with the rules, always a good thing...although I am a little biased :)

WRG 6th Edition
The third game being played was a trip to retro-ville. Richard and Bob C. fielded an army of Macedonians against Clive and Martin's Persians. Bob C. said this of the game;

It took me a while to get used to the charts and die rolls, but I really enjoyed it. Richard laid out the armies and told me when to put the archers in front or behind. He then used one group of light cavalry to roll up the Persian's left flank. Right, it did not go well for the Persians but they seemed to enjoy the game.
The melee is quite complex but with ancients, probably needs to be. I like the simultaneous moves. They give me all sorts of ideas for campaigns.

On the drive home Martin explained that the Persian army was of lower quality class-wise than the Macedonians and that made a Persian loss almost inevitable. I put this to Martin's compatriot, Clive. Clive had a slightly different view to Martin;

Martin and I thrashed them by killing at least 6 Macedonian figures for only the loss of the equivalent number of Persian units!

...Which seems to settle things I think! Usually, Ancient games at our club are usually run with Hail Caesar, Might of Arms or, very occasionally, DBA. The ancient players amongst us do have an interesting hankering for the old-school and do play the older rules on occasion. Personally, I do not like the old style rules, I find them slow and heavy going. You don't get any better or more historical results but do get the headaches and nosebleeds from the endless table reading.

Santa, Me and Brixia 45mm light mortars...

Hi The Teston Rifleman. You are my tenth follower! Many thanks and welcome to my blog.

I popped out for a haircut yesterday and upon my return my wife told me of a phone call I had missed. Seemingly, Santa had called me to discuss my position in the whole 'good boy / bad boy' stakes. Due to many passed instances of naughty, my account remains in defict despite my recent efforts, and, therefore, I would once again not be receiving any gifts this year; just the annual carrier bag of reindeer poo strewn over the car.

The news was not all bad though, Maria was good enough to fill out the required yearly report form and it seems I could be back into the good book within a few years; of course I was happy to pay santa the required £25.00 form fee. I didn't want to appear ungrateful and Maria was good enough to pass it on for me. I have to say Maria has been very helpful on this issue and I will buy her something special as a thank you for looking out for me.

Given this news I decided I should buy myself a little something. A browse through ebay found a Warlord Games 28mm Italian Para Brixia mortar to add to my Operation Squad unit. I won the auction and got the still packaged unit for less than a fiver including postage, a good saving on the £7.00 list price. The figure quality is good, I do like the Bolt Action metal ranges, but the mortar itself is going to be a pig to build.

The pic above shows a replica weapon, you can imagine the fun I will have sorting out the support structure! The pieces are tiny and I can see me using language during the build that may well keep me in Santa's bad books for a while longer.

 
The Brixia is an odd weapon, quite ahead of its time in concept but complicated to manufacture, prone to breakdowns and used faily under-powered shells. That said, it was very portable and could lay down an impressive amount of fire. The firing mechanism used a magazine of charges (the rectangular box sticking out of the top of the barrel) to launch the shells, meaning that the team could very quickly saturate a target area and then move away, advance etc.

In the Operation Squad list for the Italian Para unit (these, and others, can be found on the Operation Squad website and forum) the two man mortar team costs 100 points but increases the breakpoint by one. The weapon gets two shots per fire but with a grenade sized template for the area of effect, unlike the mortars of most other nations that get one shot but a double sized effect area. I have a feeling that that the two shots may be more adventageous in game terms but only time, and my dodgy dice rolling, will tell.

I shall post progress updates for my Italians as I can. I am having issues with the camo patterns due to my colour blindness issues (stupid WW2) but my good friend Mark is helping identify the right paints. Looking forward to this project, just got to fit the damn thing in amongst all the others!!!!

WW2....what on earth am I doing????

Three more followers! Welcome, welcome Ray, Mark and Brummie!!

Dear follower, you may have read an earlier post here regarding Operation Squad. WW2 has never really been a wargame interest for me but of late I have found myself buying figures, albeit a few at a time as my ebay account allows. This is almost entirely due to the Operation Squad rule set, I like the mechnics, the scale of game, the interactions between the players.....and I appear to like them enough to have ended up with several forces. Each squad consists of up to a dozen figures and operates as a true squad, no tanks or planes or other out of scale complications; this is a true skirmish game.

My metal Fallschirmjager squad is now complete with four extra anti tank figures I got for my birthday still to do. I am not entirely happy with the painting, sort of got the camo pattern wrong...a bit anyway...but they work. I recently found some undercoated German infantry figures on ebay and picked them up for a song. The seller seems to have sold off the extra figures he had left over from a project, most being the plastic Bolt Action ones, so no fiddly figure making first! I am not in love with them though, they fit in with my metal figures size and heft wise but the weapons are very skinny. A quick look through the Operation Squad squad lists soon highlighted the issue of weapons, my new figures were mainly armed with KAR98's and not enough of the MP40's and stuff. But that is OK, Warlord games sell a sprue of extra weapons that I can use to outfit a squad to the required level for just £4.00, I shall order one straight away, I paid so little for the germans that even with this cost I am still well ahead.

........except......with Warlord Games an order has to be a minimum of £10.00! RUDE WORD.

A look at my ebay account showed me that I had just a few extra pounds left available, I could buy something else and build up the order. Long story short...I ended with ordering a squad of Italian paratroops as well.......I know, I know.........lets not even get into the number of figures I already have to paint, Ancient Greeks, Marlburians, Pirates, secret project figures.......

But the worst of it? I have absolutely no idea how to paint Italian Paratroops! I have trawled the internet and found a few examples but nothing helpful. The Warlord Games site has a picture of ready painted figures but none close up enough to really be much help....add to that my colour blindness issues. Again, I know, I know.

Has anyone got and ideas for me, all help greatfully received!