Author: Nuada

AAR: Stukas vs the RAF

On By NuadaIn AAR, Wings of Glory WW2, WW2Leave a comment

So this week L and I played two quick games of Wings of Glory. I recently acquired two early war Stukas and some Hurricanes. So down a long, long table the Stukas went, unescorted to try things out against the Hurricanes.

The Hurricanes started their sweep slowly and were damaged pretty heavily by the Stukas, which surprised me. The Hurricanes did get behind the Stukas, who were weaving.

Not a good place to be

They managed to luckily down one Stuka. I say luckily, because the damage done was abnormally high.

The RAF coming to meet the Hun

Feeling confident that I could do it with more planes in the sky, I put my 2 ME 109s up as an escort and decided to play down the long side of the table against 2 Hurricanes and 2 Spits. That was a baaaaad idea.

The much faster Spits broke from the Hurricanes and began a long slow turn towards my force. I sent my 109s to meet them and managed to get a good amount of hits. Now, if you did not know, in the game, hits are represented by damage markers drawn by lot. “A” damage through to “D” damage. The cannons on the 109 are pretty deadly, dealing mostly “C” damage and the number of markers that L was drawing was making me smile (I later learned that he had drawn a lot of zeros).

The Stukas trucked on towards their goal, as the Spits and the 109s tangled. The Spits are so much more maneuverable though, and managed to get free and head towards the Stukas. My 109s broke in two directions, my thought being that one of my 109s could get behind the Spits, while the remaining 109 could get the Stukas through the weaker Hurricanes. Sadly no pictures of this, I was desperately trying to figure a way out of the mess that was rapidly developing in front of me.

Plans do not survive contact with the enemy, and soon one of the Spits was tailing the 109 heading towards the Hurricanes. That 109 soon caught fire as it tried to shake the Brit (my habit of drawing the highest damage markers possible continued for the entire fight). My Stukas survived the first pass of the Hurricanes, but the first damage marker I drew was engine damage for one of them. Now I was in real trouble. I had my Stukas weave to keep their rear gun arcs open as my non-flaming 109 slammed rounds into the Hurricanes as they turned tightly to get behind my bombers.

My flaming 109 went down, and then the slow Stuka. I took a little solace in blasting away one of the Hurricanes and sending it down. One Spit was smoking, one was lightly damaged, and the remaining Hurricane was limping but in the fight. I conceded the fight.

Overall, a fun enjoyable set of games. I know a bit more about how to handle Stukas, and I think the next time they fly, we’ll try some dive bombing rules (and make the opposition a little lighter)!

Project Planning – WW2

On By NuadaIn Cunning Plans, WW2Leave a comment
Para’s on overwatch

As with many, I have a list of projects that seems to grow just as fast as the lead/plastic pile. Here are the WW2 projects and games I’m (slowly) working towards.

Arnhem Chain of Command campaign in 28mm. I’m taking some FJs, and L has his British Airborne. We want to use some of our armoured toys, so we’re not playing a purely historical game. It’ll be our first Chain of Command campaign after fighting a few battles to learn the system and I’m looking forward to it.

Dunkirk/Calais Chain of Command campaign in 15mm. I’ve built up a BEF platoon and some German forces for a fight around Calais and Dunkirk. I have more terrain in 15mm, and I think that it will be interesting to play in 15mm scale on my table (6′ x 4′) as there will be so much more room for manoeuver.

Wings of Glory. Not really a campaign. I’ve got Spits, Hurricanes, Stukas and 109s. I anticipate a lot of pick up games and intercept missions. So far, I’ve found these rules to be fun and quickly playing.

What a Tanker, 15mm. These rules seem fun, so this is on the list. We’ll probably start with a few one-off games and then roll this in to some sort of ongoing fight through the various war machines in the war.

Operation Herkules – Malta, I Ain’t Been Chain of Command’ Yet Mum, 15mm. Pat over at Wargaming with Silver Whistle, has mashed together IABSM and CoC with some great results here. I have done some reading into Operation Herkules, and I really want to run a campaign game of the operation using those rules with an invasion in June 1942. German FJ and Italian forces fighting British troops for control of the island’s airbases before the RN can come and spoil the fun. I’m envisioning multiple tables and players, with superior commanders who can prioritize and release limited reserves onto those tables every so often. The Air Component Commander (ACC) can fight out air support battles, which adds another level of uncertainty to the game. Regardless, I’ve started to collect some of the required forces (captured Russian T-34s, KV-1/2s alongside Pz IVs: so much fun!) so expect to see a detailed post on Operation Herkules in the near future as I try to sort out exactly what I want!

Sealion, I Ain’t Been Chain of Command’ Yet Mum, 15mm. Carrying on in the same vein as Malta, I have a dream of doing Sealion in about two years.  This would be a large campaign with multiple companies in action at the same time with real-time decisions being made by commanders one or two levels up about where to focus their effort. Air battles. BUF attacking behind British lines. British resistance forces attacking German supply dumps. All the good stuff. How will this work? I’m hoping to do a bunch of battles locally, but ideally other gamers around the world could get in on the action and report their status back to the umpires. Heck, this could even go on for months with skirmish battles during the week and major actions on the weekend. Anyway, a dream that I’ll keep slowly planning towards and posting on as time marches on.

Later I’ll post my project list for Napoleonic and Fantasy gaming.

 

D – Day

On By NuadaIn RemembranceLeave a comment

74 years ago today, thousands of very brave men landed on the beaches of Normandy and entered into a battle that was called “the Longest Day” and led to the liberation of Western Europe.

Canadian soldiers at Juno Beach

3rd Canadian Division went ashore at Juno Beach, and made it to their D-Day objectives having penetrated further inland than any other allied forces that day many years ago – despite seeing heavier resistance than any other beach other than Omaha.

I have had the privilege of meeting some D-Day vets who went ashore at Juno Beach, and it has always been a humbling experience. Still there, many years later, is the ‘can-do’ attitude that led to the success that day. I have not seen any boasting or bragging, just the knowledge that there was a job to do, and that they were the ones that were going to do it – and they did.

 

 

Warrior Miniatures – How I found them and a Review of Naval Warships

On By NuadaIn 1:1200 warships, Napoleonic, Review1 Comment

Wanting to tryout naval wargame rules without a large expense, we turned to simple 2D print outs from the web.

Some of the 2D ships found on the web

As you can see – nothing special, but they worked! Looking at keeping the cost low, I came across War Artisan’s Workshop. It is stunning. So we made three models of a 64 gun ship to try them out. Please note that the picture below is not a good representation of what his ships normally look like! We wanted something robust and quick to get into action the next day. Instead of wire, we used toothpicks, and we weren’t concerned so much about making the ships look tiddly.

Modified War Artisan ships

We were hooked. The games were fun, and we have grand dreams of combining naval and land warfare for a Napoleonic campaign. Seeing that my lead pile had shrunk a bit, I decided to add to it and bought some metal 1:1200 ships. The scale allowed for a bit more room compared to the War Artisan ships. So I searched around and saw many expensive miniature warship manufacturers. I then came across Warrior Miniatures. They are a small company in Scotland who pride themselves on the pricing of their products. There are no pictures of their Napoleonic ships on their site (or weren’t when I was ordering), but other reviews showed them. I was a little worried about some of the pictures, as it seemed like there were some problems with a few of the moulds. Nevertheless, I decided to give them a shot and put an order in for 13 French and British warships and 2 merchant ships. The warships were mostly frigates, brigs, and schooners, but some larger vessels as well to round things out. The total cost with shipping was just over 40 pounds. Now, living on the Far Side of The World, shipping can be expensive, but when you factor it in to the cost per miniature Warrior is still far and away the least expensive 1:1200 manufacturer I’ve seen.

A few emails to arrange payment later (they do not use PayPal), and then my order was dispatched. I have had orders from the UK be delayed, (up to 3 months once for a Warbases order – though it was Canada customs and definitely not their fault) and wasn’t expecting the ships overly soon, but 3 weeks later they landed on my doorstep.

What the order looks like

As you can see, there’s a lot of ship for the money.

The starboard quarter of a 2nd Rate

The detail is quite good. I am not an expert on warship models, but I am happy to have this on my table.

The port side midships has taken some damage

The port side of the 2nd Rate sculpt needed some cleaning, but is not a lost cause by any stretch of the imagination.

A British frigate

The smaller ships are well detailed and seem to scale nicely against their heavier sisters.

Frigate sails

The sails come with some fine details and some more obvious. I am going to be careful priming the sails so I do not obscure the finer details. I can imagine that it is a trade off between realistic and visible detail for the sculptors, but I have no misgivings about these as nothing seems exaggerated or out of place.

Comparison of corvette, frigate, and 2nd Rate with some of the flags and pennants that came with the order

As you can see from the picture above, the ships scale nicely and are supplied with some nice paper flags and pennants. You can immediately tell a ship of the line from a 5th or 6th Rate, and the smaller combatants look quite fragile, which, to an extent, they were. I included the other 2nd Rate to the right so you can see the models as they come. There was really limited damage due to shipping, which was nice to see.

Overall, I’m very happy with  Warrior Miniatures. They are friendly and prompt, and exceptionally well priced. Their product seems to be excellent for a wargamer’s table. I know that there are those in the community who love modeling every ratline and ensure that the anchors are properly catted, but much of my life I have lived with the various details of seamanship being of prime importance, so in my hobby time I’m not fussing about that. I’m hoping to paint these up and throw them into battle and pretend I’m Nelson, Cochrane, and Pellew all in one. Mind you, I’m supposed to be the French… In any event, I’m going to paint some of these up over the coming weeks and I’ll report back with either an After Action Review or a specific post on how I find them on the table.

BT