Category: WW2

Workbench

On By NuadaIn 1:1200 warships, WIP, WW2Leave a comment

So the Warrior ships are coming along. I’ve finished stepping the masts and hoisting the sails. I’ve also put them on their basic bases. I will be trying to use some PVA-soaked black thread for rigging and then I’ll do some touch-ups and finish the bases. Having spent far too much time at sea, I think that the emphasis on some of the details in the sails in certain painted models is a bit much. I don’t mean to suggest that it is “BADWRONGFUN” but that from a mariners perspective, you only get hints of detail on sails until you’re close. I considered highlighting or washing some of the detail present on the sails before I thought of that; which not only makes me feel salty, it also saves me work! So here they are awaiting their standing rigging etc:

The first three roll off the ways
In line astern

I’m happy with how they are turning out and am looking forward to getting to the rest of the ships once I’ve finished my Fallschirmjagers.

Speaking of which, I sprayed the base-coat on some of my FJ supports this afternoon.

The help for the heer… well, almost.

Things are moving along, which is great. I’ve sidelined all of my medieval and fantasy miniatures and I’m going to make a concerted effort to get my FJs done in time for the Arnhem campaign. So I’m going to get the vehicles done, turn to the troops, and then work on bashing out some more terrain. We don’t have a firm date for what “in time for the Arnhem campaign” means, but we want it to be before August. There is much to be done.

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.