Bombers Over Germany

Last Saturday Ken ran a Check Your 6! game, it was a medium sized scenario as he wanted to tryout a few house rules. One was combining the pilot and plane agility modifiers, simplifying bomber defensive fire and using two CABs.  Below is his write up of how the game went.

Somewhere Over Germany, February 1944.
The American raid consisted of 16x B-17s (F’s and G’s) escorted at first by 4x P-51C’s and later by 4x P-47D Razorbacks. The Luftwaffe sent up to intercepted the bombers 4x ME-109G-6, 2x ME-110G-2/R3 and 2x FW-190A-8/R2.  Chris piloted the Allies while John and Ken flew the Defenders of the Reich.

Only the lead bomber of each group tracked altitude. 

 The P-51s preceded the bombers and dove to meet the incoming fighters aiming for the lumbering ME-110’s. The ME-109s maneuvered to protect the 110’s and 190’s.

The Dogfight Begins!

After a turn or two of maneuvering planes where in a position of open fire.

John’s ace ME-109 quickly dispatched three of the four P-51s, while heavy bomber fire damaged the ME-110s and FW-190s (despite the latter’s heavy armor).

The green ME-110 pilot scored the first bomber kill with a hail of cannon fire. The lone P-51 circled the periphery of the battle while the P-47s lead by Ace Robert Johnson closed with the German attackers.  John was able to maneuver his Ace ME-109 pilot behind a wounded bomber.  Needing to roll a 4 or higher on 2d6 to score an “aimed” hit, the pilot flinched at the wrong moment and John rolled a 3, just missing.

This pictorial evidence needs to be destroyed :)

Unfortunately for the bombers, both ME-110s maneuvered into trailing positions and opened up. Two turns in a row the Germans downed at least one bomber.  However the defensive fire from the remaining B-17's finally downed the slow moving 110’s.

After 12 turns the bombers had reached their drop point and we ended the game (the Luftwaffe had nothing to stop them at this point!). We then calculated victory points, though we had forgot to check crew survival at the moment of destruction, so the totals are swayed to the favor of the Germans initially but after all the victory points were tallied, the US gained a slight victory.
 
The butcher’s bill:
8 B-17s, 3 P-51s, 2 ME-110s, 2 FW-190 and 2 ME-109, 1 German Ace, 2 German Veteran pilots, 1 US Ace and 1 US Veteran pilot.

Not seen are two damaged ME-109's, one at a max speed of one!

Notes from the game
We used a modification to the bomber defensive fire rules in an attempt to speed up play. Basically the closet bomber to a fight was designated as the primary firer for base To_hit #, while other nearby bombers added in  To-Hit modifiers (Edit: it worked ok IMO). We also simplified the modifier by combing the pilot and plane modifiers together. We used the differential between the attack and defender and a chart for the range categories, then cross indexed with deflecting or tailing to locate To-hit #. It is simpler than it sounds. (Edit: this work really well and would take it a step further, use one range chart with To-Hit numbers increased by two. Then To-Hit roll is Range # = 2d6 + Attacker - Defender +2 Tailing. The usual cannon modifiers would apply if appropriate.)

Cannon fire is very deadly.  After playing some Pacific Theater games with Zeroes rolling 2d4 and 2d10s and Wildcats rolling 4d6 for damage, FW-190A-8/R2s rolling 2d20s and 2d10s results in more outright destructions over damaging.  This was also the first time in our playing of CY6! that an Ace pilot was shot down.

Next up Jets over Germany!

Resguardo Irregular Cavalry

I have painted my last unit for my Second Mexican-American War force! Of course I have said that in the past and seem to keep adding units to the army (and as I write this I realize I probably need to paint up six figures for the dismounted option for this unit!).

As I previously posted, I was not happy with the size of the Gringo40 figures. So I bought a pack of Old Glory irregular mexican cavalry on our last order with OG. These were from their mexican american war line, and I suspect not much would have changed in the ensuing 20 years, so I think they'll fit in pretty well as 1864 irregular cavalry . I did clip off the cross piece of the lances to make them more "modern" :)

I intend to use these figures as a Resguardo Irregular Cavalry unit, but I may also use them as line lancers. So I decided to paint them a little more uniformed than they "probably" would have been. I searched online for a pic, found one of a cavalryman in a bluish/grey jackets and greenish/black pants that I liked for inspiration. I mostly copied the picture but did add a few of my own flourishes (like the red/white/green bands) to get the below results.

Resguardo Irregular Cavalry

And to lead this trusty (well more likely untrustworthy) unit, is Fausto "I don't need no stinking rank" Hernandez.

Fausto Hernandez

The pack came with ten figures, and I used eight figures for the unit and the one for the leader. This left the below figure that I painted up as well. Not sure what I'll use him for, perhaps a scout or messenger, but most likely he'll grace the table as an NPC in any games we play.

Señor Pepe Romero with his old pistola

Our British force has fallen through, but looks like we have pick up another Mexican force. So I expect the next blog post for the MAW2 project will be a battle report of the first scenario of the programmed campaign I have worked on.

The Battle of Haberdorf - 1760

James was in town for a few days and had an inkling to game, so he grabbed his 15mm SYW figures from the garage and we had a pickup game last Saturday. We have of late been using Honours of War by Osprey Publishing for our Seven Years War fix. I have played HoW several times and enjoy the rules immensely, in particular when played with the 15mm figures (more room to game).

For this battle, James (left flank) and Steve (right flank) controlled the Prussian army of (from left to right), a Cavalry Brigade of four regiments, an Infantry Brigade of five battalions and a light battery, an Infantry Brigade of six battalions, an Infantry Brigade of six battalions, an Infantry Brigade of five battalions and a light battery, and a Cavalry Brigade of four regiments. Finally they had an Independent battery of medium guns.

Chris (left) and I (right) ran the Russian Army. It was composed of (left to right) a Cavalry Brigade of four regiments, an Infantry Brigade of six battalions and a light battery, a Grenadier Brigade of six battalions and a light battery, an Infantry Brigade of six battalions and a light battery, and a Cavalry Brigade of four regiments. Finally we had two independent batteries of medium guns and a cossack regiment of inferior quality.

Each side had an Army break level of sixteen, and the crossroads objective was worth two army breakpoints. While the Prussian army received a +1 to their move initiative roll and their cavalry was efficient at maneuvering, the Russians had two more grenadier battalions and one less inferior battalion than the Prussian side, they had two battalions of Saxons (who of course are always inferior in any ruleset).

We set up the table and roughed out our battle plans … then we rolled for our brigadier command ability. We have found that this makes for a much more exciting game by rolling the quality of the brigadiers after the setup. In this case both Prussian cavalry brigadiers were Dithering, while the trailing Prussian infantry brigadier was Dashing. The Russians only had one Dithering brigadier, and the rest of the leaders on either side were deemed Dependable.

 

The Russian right flank was pretty congested, and I soon realized that I needed to get the far right infantry brigade out of the way of the cavalry that was bringing up the rear of the column.

But true to form the dithering commanders on both sides failed to advance at the start of the game. In particular this really hurt the Prussian left flank cavalry brigade as they had a chance to really clog up the Russian right. They rolled so badly that it was in fact the Russian cavalry that moved through the gap and charged home. However, after the dust settled it was the Russians who were decimated! One lone Dragoon regiment was all the stood between the beat up Prussian cavalry brigade (sans 1 dragoon rgt) and the flank of the Russian battle line.

The cavalry on the other flank also clashed, while not as decisive nor as bloody as the other flank, it did keep both sides cavalry out of the rest of the battle. The Russians for the most part rallied enough regiments to push the Prussian cavalry off the battlefield by the end of the battle.

In the center, the two infantry battle lines slowly advanced towards each other (the Prussians deployed earlier than expected), and so the only sounds of combat were some sporadic artillery fire from both sides artillery batteries.

But the Prussian advance began in earnest once it had formed two lines of infantry. Sadly the two units of Saxons were in the center brigade and once they clashed with the Russians quickly collapsed leaving a large hole in the Prussian line.

The Russians had two medium batteries, an infantry brigade and the grenadier brigade to hold off the approaching three Prussian Infantry brigades (a couple of Grenadier battalions in each of the flank brigade). The two sides spent the bulk of the next couple of hours hammering away at each other, with the Prussians ever so slowly pushing the Russians back. The Prussian side controlled the objective for most of the battle and this brought the Russian army close to breaking. Once the Russian line fell back to a line that had a copse of woods that anchored its left flank, the tide started to turn the final fresh brigade of russian infantry finally got into action.

The far right Prussian brigade of infantry tried to turn the Russian left flank, but it just took to long to develope and they spent to much time worry over cossacks! It was successful up to a point, as it forced the Russians to fall back to protect their flank. But by this time the last fresh infantry brigade was crashing into the depleted Prussian center.

The third Russian infantry brigade had to wait a bit to find room to deploy. Though this allowed it to arrive in the nick of time! It swung to the right and came into action and soon swept away the depleted Prussian battalions trying to hold on in the center.

We played for almost five hours before the Prussian army broke. The game ended seventeen to twelve for the army morale, as the Russians were able to recapture the crossroads and rout several battalions on the last turn.

As is becoming the norm with these rules, I had a blast playing and am already looking forward to the next time we can game. I highly recommend the rules to anyone interested in the Seven Years War, though I think it is best using 15mm figures as you can have units march on, a second battle line, turning movements and a reformation area et... which is much more difficult (impossible) to do in 28mm.

US 155mm Battery

Lately I have been finishing up old projects, and this week it was a section of US 155mm howitzers for Flames of War that I finally finished.

A new 4th edition FOW is coming out this year (IMO entirely NOT needed), though it is geared toward Mid-War (which is entirely needed). Fortunately most of my American forces can be used in both mid or late war, as can these 155mm's.

US 155mm Howitzer Section

The green on the howitzers was darker than I wanted, but it will suffice for gaming. With all the 28mm figures I have painted these past few years, I had forgotten how much darker paints looks on 15's.

The 155mm Howitzer model barely fits on the supplied base

I went with a painted table, as I felt a wood color would blend to much with the pants. I like this staff team set, especially as it is just a generic set.

The Staff Team, ready to repeat any bombardments or coordinate other indirect fire.

I was not happy with how the tan jackets turned out, and they really don't look the same as my original US figures. I will just tell myself that they are newer issued jackets and have not faded as much :)

Battery Commander, he also can acts as a secondary spotter.

I really liked the FO figures, and the only thing that would have made them better is if the figure on the left was either looking through binos or was consulting a map.

FO Team, ready to call in the big guns!

I may look at finishing up my French Foreign legion figures ... I have a few AT guns and another platoon to do for them. Though I am trying to talk myself into doing up a Team Yankee army for the store.

Pike & Shotte Campaign Battle - The Bridge

Even though I told the guys I wasn't going to blog about yesterday's game, I do have a few pics of the game, and thought it would be easy to do a quick post.

Mike had arrange for another round of the P&S campaign they've been running (even convinced me to roll up a mercenary command!). Mike and Troy supplied all the figures and set up the table for the The Bridge scenario out of the mini campaign in The Devils Playground book. Brett was also able to make it, so it turned into a two vs two game.

Troy and I set up on the left of the river, while Mike and Brett set up on the right. They won the initiative which allowed Mike to throw forward a pike block onto the bridge. Brett, Troy and I basically sat around for the next couple of turns (Brett and I searching for a ford in the river).

The Bridge

 The victory condition for the scenario is to control the bridge for three consecutive turns ... of course Troy and I spent the next two turns dawdling around our baseline! So before we lost, I had my commander take charge of a group of rabble and charge the bridge (passed a Follow Me order).

My lone unit of militia was all that stood between victory and defeat ... as it turned out only a few more turns before defeat took hold of our armies :) but we did manage to do a little damage to some shotte units.

Deciding enough was enough, Mike ordered his pike block to changed into column and charged across the bridge into my militia. Surprisingly it took a couple of turns (and misinterpreted rule) before the pikemen gained the advantage and drove off my militia. 

By now the bulk of Mike's and Brett's foot units were supporting the unit on the bridge and to top it off, Brett's cavalry finally found the ford and started crossing the river.

After being driven back from my now shaken militia broke my command. This was because earlier in the game, some musketry had drove off my other Militia unit (they actually ran away when I tried to rally them!) My unit of Cuirassier never were able to join the fray.

We called the game and rolled for experience and extra units as per the rules. It seems that my Cuirassiers were issued lances and learned how to use them (Lancer ability and +1 H-to-H), while a unit of militia pick up a few muskets (+1 shooting) and finally, the crew of the medium guns was issued some swords (+1 H-to-H). So after the game this is what my Mercenary Company looked liked (no extra units):

Captain Bruenig (Reliable, SR=7)

Unit	Type	Weapon	H-to-H	Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Cuirassier	Heavy Horse	Lance, Sword & Pistol	7	-	4+	2	Mercenary, Caracole, Hvy Cav +1, Lancer
Militia	Foot Warband	Mixed Melee & Ranged	1	1	6	2	Mercenary, Militia, Rabble
Militia	Foot Warband	Mixed Melee	1	-	6	2	Mercenary, Militia, Rabble
Artillery	Ordnance	Light Gun (24")	1	3-2-1	6	1	Mercenary
Artillery	Ordnance	Medium Gun (36")	2	3-2-1	6	1	Mercenary

There is also talk about a reset and fiddling around with the campaign rules (Troy's leader now commands 13 units!).

Tirailleurs Algeriens in Mexico

As some of you may know, I was not very keen on the size of the Gringo40 28mm figures, and made plans to paint up some Perry figures as back up. Due to a generous donation from Doc, I was able to get a few Perry plastic zouaves from him to use as Tirailleurs.

Even though I will mostly use them as a skirmish unit of six figures, I opted once again to paint up eight figures in case I later decide to use them as a line unit.

Close up on a single figure. The blue is actually a lighter shade than what the picture shows. Though I could not force myself to do them in a pure sky blue color :)

I may see if i can get an officer figure and paint him up in the color scheme as well, but I already have enough leaders for any game, so not on the painting table at this point.

I also painted up a pack of perry ACW figures to flush out the Former Republican line units. Both units now have eight figures and one of them can be a ten figure militia unit if needed.

It had been a couple of months since I had painted up the Republican figures, but I think they came out well enough that most of you won't be able to tell them apart.

One on left recently finished, while the one on the right was done a couple of months ago.

And finally I finished a secondary deployment point for my command. It can also pass as a movable deployment point if needed but I do have an alternate idea for painting up one of those.

I think I'll take a break on painting figures for the MAW2 project and focus in on the scenarios and army lists for the campaign. That said I do have a pack of figures on hand that I am going to paint up as armed civilians ... at a later time.

French Army in MAW2

I recently received the French Legionnaire and Mexican Cavalry figures from Gringo40s. As I had finished everything else I quickly primed and painted the legionnaire figures. They came out fairly well and the detail on each figure was really good.

Though I was not keen on having to glue several of the weapons to  some of the figures and suspect they will "break" during gameplay. I probably should have pinned them but am to impatient for that! I painted up eight soldiers and a leader, so that I can use them as a skirmish unit (6 figures) or a line unit (8 figures) plus leader to command them.

While I had plans to paint them as a French Foreign Legion detachment left behind, I ended up painting them as French Line instead. Mostly because the FFL had white pants and I already had enough white in the army. The French line units had red pants and wanted them to stand out from the rest of the Mexican army. I based them the same as my previous figures (see Basing Figures in MAW)

Lt. Labossiere and his detachment from the 51st Line

However, I not sure I am even going to use them! They are simple too big (the cavalry are even more monstrous!) and think the size difference with the Perry figures may be to great for my tastes. I'll give them a go, but it is possible I'll be selling these figures off pretty soon.

Red line is eye level, even if the Perry figure was a little more "upright" the sheer bulk of the Gringo40 figure dwarfs him.

If I do ditch them, my new plan is to get some ACW zouaves (Perry perhaps) and paint them up as legionaries, maybe Algeria raised FFL units with the turbans.

Basing Figures - Mexican American War II

Normally I either base a unit as it is done, or base the whole project in one go. However I have finished painting what I have on hand and decided to base it up even though I will be painting more figures for the Mexican American War II project.

Phase 1 - Rocks

All figures have been glued to the tan primed 25mm bases (1.5mm thick).

So out came my three containers of rock, glue brush, water, Elmers glue and I then set down to "rock" 50 figures.

My impromptu work station.

I had cut out a "special" base for the artillery piece. At first I was going to leave the cannon un-based, but decided to raise it to the same level as the crew. Initially it was just going to be on a 60mm round base but thought it might look a little better if I notched out a few spaces for the crew to tighten up on the gun.

A little careful exacto work, sanding and walla! 

In all it took around an hour of to get all figures rocked, not too bad considering a few phone calls interrupted my "zone". It is actually get pretty boring work; dip brush into glue, spread all over base, sprinkle a couple of "large" rocks on it, cover 80% of the base with the "thick" rocks, then dip the whole base into the "dirt" to cover everything else and finally blow off excess dust, and repeat.

Dirt and rocks for all!

This is going to be my main Deployment point ... I'll print up an Imperial Mexican flag next. I also have a couple of ideas for additional deployment points (secondary and movable), but wanted to have this one done right away.

There still is some work that needs to be done on my unit of skirmishers. I am going to add tufts to the kepi and paint them green. As most of the army is an ad hoc 'what if' 1864 force, I am taking a few liberties with the uniforms, so pom poms for the Cazadores it is!

The pants are much lighter in person!

Phase 2 - Grass

Next up, desert grass that will work on green table cloth! I wanted to avoid the "green" look I normally go for as these figures are supposed to be running around Southwest america. But as the vast majority of games are going to be played on the green cloth they needed to blend in with the cloth as well. So I mixed a special blend of burnt grass and earth flocking, with a touch of green in it.

Materials I used to blend a "desert" grass

Typically I cover three quarters of the base with glue and dip the base into a green flock mix. This time I wanted a more "spotty" look, so I just dabbed the glue on around the base before dipping it into the flock. Some bases had more, some had less grass.

The Deployment Point, sans a flag

As it is just two steps to apply the grass mixtures, this step went a lot faster, around 20 minutes to do the whole lot of the bases. I then let glue dry a little longer before I add some tufts to few bases. I usually don't do too many on rank and file bases though.

The Corporal is on a 30mm base, so gets a tuft!

After the glue has dried completely, I spray all the figures with flat varnish. Not only does this protect the paint job, it also dulls the dip gloss and helps glue down the flocking.

Same figure as seen above in the Rocks section.

The artillery base turned out pretty good ... fortunately I only had to do one of them :)

Top down view of the completed gun section.

The bulk of my basic force is now done, though it is missing the French Foreign Legion section. I'll also paint up some extra groups and a cavalry group to use as supplemental units for different scenarios.

Former Republican troops (left) and Imperial Army (right)

I'll order up the Legion and Cavalry figures later this week from Gringo 40s.

Mexican American War II

I am sure you'll all be surprised but a small group of us have started up a new project. And as I am want to do, I got them doing something different than 'normal' gaming project :)

I recently read the Sharps Practice 2 rules and thought it seemed like a fun rule set to play. And the figure count is relatively low, so would make for a neat mini project (of course it has grown slightly than I originally anticipated!). I knew I did not want to do any Napoleonic figures (have plenty of opportunities to paint up troops for Black Powder), and was thinking that as I have never done an AWI project, SP2 supports AWI, plenty of figures to choose from, that it would be a perfect period for the project... But when I broached the idea to several other participants, I found a lack of interest in it, in fact they thought an ACW project would be better.

I have plenty of 15mm ACW and so was not super keen on the idea. I threw out the idea of doing something different, a quasi-historical period … how about the 2nd American Mexican set during the during the American Civil War! We could have Confederates, Union, Mexican, French, Austrian, Belgian and even British troops … they were sold on the idea. So I read up on what was happening during that time frame and got to work on writing up some background material.

PAX MEXICANA, 1864

 My basic premise is that to unify the country after the French leave Mexico (mostly), Maximilian promises to restore Texas to the Mexican Empire! So in 1864 Mexico invades Texas, along with British support (intent of taking over the Rio Grande Cotton Trade route). Only the French Foreign Legion remained behind to help the Mexican side, while Union troops have been reluctantly accepted by Texas to help stem the invasion.

There will be four main forces to choose from, Texas Home Guard, who distrust the union to much to operate with them, though have irregular units such as Texas Rangers. And Confederate Veterans, who are reluctantly willingly to work with Union troops on the American side.

Maximilian forces are an Mexican Imperial Army, made up of both former republican and imperial forces, with a few Legionnaire units. Or a British Intervention Force supported by some Mexican irregular forces (mostly cavalry).

Each player is going to paint up a core force which we will track through the campaign, and units can gain and lose experience, special abilities as the campaign progresses. Each player will also need to paint up several support units that can be used from game to game but won’t be tracked. Typically this will be artillery, cavalry and limited special units (such as Sharpshooters).

Here is my initial rough draft of the rules, compiled from several sources and will most definitely change. Mexican American War II - Rough Draft

Captain Delgado's Company, 8th Battalion
I have chosen (well a process of elimination :) to paint up a Mexican Army. While both Gringo 40 and Foundry do figures for the Maximilian Adventure, I decided to mostly use Perry's ACW figures for the infantry. I’ll get some Gringo40's cavalry and legionnaires to finish off the core units. I might also get some Foundry figures to use as leaders, support units, as well as for making a few Deployment points.

1st Platoon
Waiting on basing and a couple of touch ups, but my first formation is mostly done (two 8 figure groups and a leader).

The flesh looks "whiter" in this pic, but do need to darken it on later figures.

2nd Platoon
My second formation is blocked out, dip and touch ups left to do (again 2 groups and a leader).

I was going to paint them up in the late Imperial Uniform (red shirt, green pants) but one was not keen on the color combo and two, the figures turned out not to be a close a fit as I thought. So they are using mostly uniforms received from the Union before their treachery!

Supporting Units
Next up is a artillery piece (leaning towards painting them up in a white uniform) and a 6 figure skirmish group (which I am leaning towards a variant of the Cazadore uniform (Blue/Grey with green piping).

Going to have to add one more figure as artillery unit has 5 men to it. My initial thought is to use an extra standard bearer from the "white uniform" unit above and craft a cleaning rod for him.

I am thinking about adding a pompom to the top of the kepi, and if i am really feeling crafty, I will bulk up the kepi first to look like a shako!

This should (along with the cav and french) get me close to my starting force, plus a support unit. Though I might need to get some more "regular" infantry to add to my basic force.

Already have some ideas for deployment points. The main deployment point will be on a 60mm round base with one (or two) flag bearers and a table with an officer. A secondary point, might be some crates with an NCO. For a movable deployment points I am leaning towards just a 40mm round base with a single "sneaky" skirmisher figure advancing.

Will have more to come and will post some pics of the other chaps armies as they get units done.