Finally for tonight.. somthing completely different

Well, I'm tired and I'm going ot go to bed. but for last, something completely different. I really enjoyed Battlefleet Gothic and this is my favorite ship, both to play and to look at, a squadron of 3 of these Dauntless class light cruisers can really ruin someones day. Sorry about the non-spacy background. At some point I should take pics of my two gothic fleets (Imperial and Chaos)

Assorted old mini's

Well, here is a selection of some of my more eclectic miniatures. I think I even went without food as a grad student to get my lead fix and some of these more obscure miniatures (well the Germans aren't obscure) but some of the other stuff is.

SADF units

Buffel

Ratel

G6

Modern Germans

Swedish BandKannon

Soviet Radar

ZSU-57-2

Aircraft!

I dug out a few of my old aircraft too, I think with a little TLC I can make bring them up to a better standard of painting. I can't remember who made these mini's but they look ok even if there isn't much surface detail


Swedish Viggens


Su-27s

Mig-29s

The workbench

I've removed a closet door in my office and made myself a little painting cubbyhole,
its beginning to get a little crowded but its nice to have a little place to paint.


I need to put up a few shelves to store those inevitable "in progress" projects such as some 1/1200 napoleonic ships.. Here is the British 74 Bellerophon in progess

Some old school epic

Well its midnight and my eyes hurt too much to paint, so I thought I'd snap some pictures of some minis I painted from a few years ago. I'll start out with some models from SM / EPIC / Armageddon

While I always found the Eldar a bit .. well lacy blouse for my playing style I love some of the minis. Specifically the old school Tempest super heavy tanks are one of the nicest designs of any of the vehicles IMHO. SO here are a few pics






I also liked the original Eldar Titans, I have a phantom and warlock as seen below. I should dress up the base on the Phantom, I think it makes a real difference.





As you can tell, this was the year when I learned to blend colours as I seem to have on everything I painted!

Latest projects.. those poor Soviets!

Well,

After the pasting the British Challengers and Milan teams gave the Soviets in our first game I thought I'd even the odds a little. I'm taking a break from painting my new CinC Chieftains (pics later) and found an old Mi-24 Hind D miniature that I decided to repaint and mount. I also ordered a Soviet Fansong E air defence radar from CinC. Its a nice model and goes together well. I've included some unpainted pics

I have another Hind but unfortunately its missing one stub wing!!! grrrr! if anyone has such a thing please let me know!!!


Hind quarter(pun intended!), and side views




Hind .. the view no NATO commander likes to see



Fansong E unpainted

My First CWC Game

Well our first game of CWC has occured, many many thanks to Gary for hosting us and Lawrence for doing a sterling job of trying to herd 8 novice players through a game!

We used the pursuit scenario, approximately 8800 points of Soviets and 4000 of British circa 1984ish. To simplify (with a 12000 point game!!) things for our first game we left out field defences and all scheduled assets (no arty!)

Orders of battle

Soviet

3 BMP-1 Battalions
1 T-80 Battalion
1 Independent tank brigade (T-62)
1 Mixed Battalion (T-80 / BMP-1)

Each Soviet player commanded 1 Battalion

British

2 Heavily reinforced Mech Inf Battalions (each had 2 Challenger 1 Coy's attached)

So starting off as one of the British players.. I was nervous to say the least

With the deployment rules BR player spread out a bit as we didn't know which table edge would be the baseline for the Soviets so we hedged our bets a little. Andrew (other BR player) and I split the table down the middle for our areas of responsibility


Initial deployment of British Forces

Some close ups of initial British Deployment



Across the centre of the table,




Challenger Company and a Mech Inf company occupy a wooded hill on the left flank




A Challenger company and some Milan units occupy the other flank hill facing the Soviet line of advance along with the Battalion CO on the reverse of the slope

AS it happens, the Soviets chose to put the river at our backs and made a very deep flank deployment with the mixed battalion



Soviet deployment, note the flank deployment just out of picture to the left

The Soviet units entered the fight and came under opportunity fire as much as possible My forward Mech Inf Company found itself facing 3 full Battalions Yikes! it did op-fire upon the lead BMP Battalion cause several casualties (Carl Gustavs at short range are really cool!) but their situation was precarious



The Brave few out front!


The flanking battalion came under immediate and heavy fire from Milan and Scimitars on the hill as they moved on table as well as from the Infantry in the woods Several casualties were caused on both sides


The Flankers disrupt my plans!



Here we see the situation as the Soviet complete their first turn my lead coy in the woods furthest is not in a great spot, the Soviet T-80s in the centre on the road have come under fire from the Challengers on the left and have stalled a little. The leftmost BMP Battalion waddled onto the table deployed and dismounted and unloaded good old fashioned volley fire to the Mech Inf in the woods in front of them causing quite a bit of damage and suppression


Challengers and Milan on overwatch wait for the Soviet hammer to peek around the hill


The Soviet bound ends and the Brits start their move, having far more HQs and flexible command helped enormously, I immediately started to redeploy the Challengers to counter the threat from the mixed Battalion and brought the Scimitars around their flank. The restricted vision rule here really hurt the Soviets and I was able to damage and suppress some T-80s and knockout a BMP unit that went for the river

I should also mention that our reserve Mech Inf Coy got some great command rolls and moved all the way from the centre of the table right off the battlefield (our objective was to withdraw in good order)


My poor forward Battalion tries to withdraw through the woods in order to embark and run like hell, unfortunately its fails its second command roll and is stuck on the backside of the slope!

Turn 2 ..


The Brits as feeling pretty good, the Soviets start to surge, a BMP battalion tries an attack on the village only to be stalled but lots of suppression and hits with some support from the Challengers on the hill , Opportunity fire is a grand thing!

We start to take some casualties as the Brits but the Soviet attack stalls a little.My forward Battalion is all but wiped out, out left flank forward battalion is hurting badly but the Challengers and Milan units really start to take a toll. The t-80s reach thier break point, I was lucky with some good command rolls and the Challengers and Milan on the hill decimate the Independent Tank Brigade and some of the BMP battalion attacking the town. Our forward Challengers start to withdraw and take 1 casualty


Challengers redeploy to take the flank attack


The game got really busy at this point so this report kinda peters out it got busy and this had taken a long time (because we were all learning and there were so many of us! We decided to let the Soviets have their next turn and then call it a day
My lead Coy was pretty much destroyed as was the lead coy on the left flank but our opportunity fire continued to cause casualties and suppression. For giggles the remnants of the mixed battalion on the flank (now down to just 2 BMP-1s decided to assault my Mech Inf HQ, which withdrew anad joined the Challengers so they proceeded to annihilate a lone GPMG unit. I need to take a closer look at the assault rules as I don't have my head around them yet


Situation in the Centre, the Soviets have taken a lot of casualties and have reached break point in several batallions with many units suppressed. The attack has been halted for now.


The situation on the left flank, the wooded hill is still occupied by all sorts of nastiness.

Some Conclusions

Well this game ws slow but it was because we were all noobs and there were so many of us! I can see CWC playing very fast once we get the hang of it.. it was a real blast!

The Brits did suprisingly well, far from withdrawing I think we we in a position where a counter-attack was a strong possibility. The reasons for this include

1. Technological edge
2. we had independent ATGW units
3. Soviet presented flanks to us too much for their health
4. 6 players on the Soviet side was too much!! it was too hard to coordinate
5. Lots of CO and HQ units for the Brits giving plenty of activations

Its easy to look at stuff in retrospect but I think the Soviets should've had more of the Nelson touch and just gone for it, taking thier licks on the way in and getting into knife fighting range which would've negated our tech and range edge and allowed their numbers to swamp us and force us to try a more mobile defence. Still thats easy for me to say after the fact

All in all a very enjoyable game and I can't wait to play again!

Here are the latest paintjobs. I'm basing them for cold war commander. Infantry and units such as FAOs are on 30x30, Artillery, COs and HQs are on 40x40 bases.




Soviet T-12 100mm Anti Tank gun (old basing)



FAO units, one guy with Binoculars + Spartan APC



TR-1 Tracked Rapier in a small revetment



Some Saxon APCs for my Infantry Battalion




GHQ T-72 in a little Diorama



FROG-7 Based

6mm British Mechanised Infantry Batallion

Well here it is, my first unit for Cold War Commander, a British Mechanised Infantry Battalion (early 80s) sans one Milan stand (which is being replaced, the original one fell between the planks of my deck while being painted!!! grrrrrr!

BMP-1 Company done & other stuff

Well I've done a little more.

I've painted a BMP-1 company, completed a few more T-80s (I think) and have spruced up a BMD-1 (of which I have another 8.. I think the drybrushing improves things a lot so I've done a comparison shot. (I've also made the pics a little smaller)