28mm Horsa Glider - A huge and excellent blog of resin...

The last two weeks were quite here. I've been working on many different miniatures but didn't produce anything finished. Simultaneously I had some busy days at work and some efforts for the 1812 ruleset I'm taking part in. Many irons in the fire. Maybe too many...

Anyway I didn't want to bore you with daily WIP-shots. For the next week there'll be some more Vikings, the FIW British for BfC and some more 1812 French and allies.

But now for my entry for the recent fortnight bonus round of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. The theme was 'vehicles' and I decided to prepare a 28mm Horsa Glider which I need for the Pegasus Bridge project.

The eagle has landed and the Red Devils disembark.

For this bonus round I painted a British Horsa. This glider was used by British and allied airborne troops to be carried into combat during Word War II. Its most famous employments were the invasion of Sicily, the airborne landings prior to D-Day and Operation Market Garden in September 1944. The Airspeed Horsa glider measured a length of 20 metres and wingspan of 27 metres. It had no engine and was drawn into the air by a larger towing aircraft like the Handley Page Halifax or the Douglas DC-3. It was capable to carry 25 fully equipped soldiers, a jeep or a 6pdr antitank gun.

The huge model is about 30cm (about 12  inches) long.

This actual model here is a 28mm Horsa by Grand Manner. It's a hugh model. A solid blog of resin from Dave Bodley's gifted hands. It shows all important characteristics and was assembled very quickly. The only thing I improved were the supports of the main wings. I substituted the white metal rods with solid brass ones since I thought it might be slightly too heavy under the hard circumstances on the gaming table...

 For painting I used my old airbrush and Vallejo Model Colours with suitable thinner. All in all it was an interesting experience to paint such a great model. Merely the tail seems to be a bit too short. Although I didn't paint the white and black stripes too broad I wasn't able to attach the transfers on the side correctly. Therefore I attached them slightly forward. It looks fairly alright to me but for the next Horsa I would repaint the tail with thinner stripes...

Wingspan nearly 36 centimeters (more than 14 inches).

However I'm glad to have this piece finished. Another step for my Pegasus project and another fortnight bonus round passed on the painting challenge. With around 260 points I'm nearly half done with my 600 points target and I'm rather confident that I'll be able to collect the missing points with the remaining fortnight bonusses and the other stuff on my workbench.

By the way Fran Lee won our 600 points race! Congratulations!

Therefore I owe him a painted miniature as well deserved price. Drop me an email mate to talk about the what when and how.

Patrol to nowhere - Bolt Action AAR

Next-to-last friday we gathered for a quick game of Bolt Action. After a year which was dominated by AWI and Black Powder we needed a trip to more modern times and our knowledge of the Bolt Action rules needed a reboot. So one of the boys prepared a table in his annexe and created a scene in Russia in summer or early autumn 1942.

The small village from the German deployment zone's view.

There we met the outskirts of a small Russian village lying in the line of approach of the German forces. The village was occupied by Russian forces of unknown strength and therefor we had the order to reconnoitre it with a small advance guard of light troops. So we fielded some cavalry, a squadron of bikes, a SdKfz 222 with 20mm cannon, an infantry squad mounted on a SdKfz 251 and our platoon leader with his SdKfz 250 against the Red Army which was represented by a couple of green tokens for hidden deployment. Not all of these tokens stood for "real" troops so we didn't know the actual strength of our opposing players. Our mission was to explore as much of those tokens as possible to get a view of the enemy forces here.
To keep the rules simple for this test game neither side fielded artillery, mortars or any other weapons with special rules.

The SdKfz 251 discovering an enemy tank...

The start of the game went rather well. We rushed forward with the bikes and the 251 and both proved better than we feared. The bikes are awesomely fast and the 251 benefited from the recce special rule when it discovered a T34 blocking the road. When the tank took aim the SdKfz made a sudden escape move and disappeared around a hill to evade the T34's deadly cannon.

..but it escaped and the infantry squad it carried dismounted.

Unfortunately sooner or later things exacerbated. It seems we were a bit too brisk and went into a trap set by our Russian opponents.

Our bikers rushing over the fields of Russia.

 When the bikes reached the outer walls of the village three Russian units appeared and laid devastating gunfire on our squad. With some lucky dice they annihilated the bikers in one turn.

After three Russian units appeared the remains of our bike squad turn tail and run.

On the other flank it wasn't better. Altough the tracks of the T34 had a malfunction and left it immobilized (random event controled by our umpire) we didn't managed to destroy the T34. Even a courageous infantry attack with anti-tank grenades didn't put it over the edge.

Unlucky tank hunters...

Into the bargain there were further infantry forces appearing and aiming at the squad dismounted from the SdKfz 251. Those boys got a lot of lead to guzzle.

Kind of Russian counterattack.

 Until then our cavalry was acting as kind of reserve and we sent them into battle then to relieve the heavily cannonaded troops. But anyway there wasn't any chance to dislodge the entrenched Russians.

Cavalry trying to reliev the pinned bikers.

Of course dismounted since cavalry charges were a bit out of fashion in WW II... Unfortunately.

At this point of the game our forces were decreased heavily. Most of the units were either pinnend or badly hurt or even both. But there were still some points of interest to explore:

Still unknown spots on the map...

 We suffered severely when trying to explore the last tokens and finally reached all but three of them before retreat was indispensable.

SdKfz 222 securing the flank and sneaking forward.

 Although we didn't manage to complete our mission it was an interesting game and we had a lot of fun. It was great to play such an agile and quick force but it was lacking strength and firepower to handle contact with a serious enemy. Anyway  this gaming experience confirmed me in creating a light airborne force for Operations Deadstick and Market Garden. Assuming that the opponent doesn't field too many heavy tanks there are a lot of interesting matches to come. Last friday we were able to get a first idea of my Red Devils when we played the Pegasus Bridge scenario in a modified way to test the scenario rules and the army lists. But that's a story for another post...

A perplex squad leader in his scout car.

Bolt Action 23.11.2012 (28mm): Search and Rescue

Last Friday the THS met in the headquarter once again and I had the pleasure to participate in another game of Bolt Action. We played on an urban board with a lot of really nice scenary which Achim provided. Although the buildings were actually designed for 20mm miniatures, they worked well with the 28mm figures you might remember from the first Bolt Action game report here (Link). It created a dense feeling of street fighting and allowed an exiting, entertaining but unusually short game.

Target of German and American desire.

Within this small city a German airplane crashed down. It carried a high-ranking staff officer who escorted secret plans for the Army Group B to counter the Allied advance. Although he survived the crash, he severely wounded and unable to find his way back to the German lines.
To rescue him and the plans the Germans launched a search and rescue mission. At the same time the Americans sent a small vanguard to catch him and take him prisoner to lay their hands on the top secret plans.




 

Game Report: Bolt Action 20mm - 17.11.2012

Last saturday I played another game of Bolt Action. Some fellows of my old 20mm wargaming group visited me and we wanted to try how the rules work with smaller miniatures. Furthermore we have been developing our own ruleset sine 1995 and are still looking for new ideas.

Unfortunaley our main German collector and scenary builder was unable to join us. So we were limited to my very small pool of terrain and Axis troops. Therefore the board was realy simple and nothing compared with the great scenery we played the week before.

However we made the best of it and fielded the following troops:

Axis (mixed Italian and German troops):

• Infantry squad (regular) with SMGs, rifles and a light machine gun
• Infantry squad (regular) with SMGs, rifles and two light machine guns
• Command squad lead by Hauptmann (Captain) von Mamelstein (regular)
• Command squad lead by Sottotenente (2nd Lieutenant) Pacelliano
• Medium machine gun team (regular)
• Medium mortar team with spotter (regular)
• Sniper team (regular)
• SdKfz. 7 with 37mm Flak (veteran)

Americans:

• Infantery squad (twelve men) with SMGs, rifles and a BAR (regular)
• Infantery squad (twelve men) with SMGs, rifles and a BAR (regular)
• Command squad lead by 2nd Lieutenant Peterson (regular)
• Command squad lead by 2nd Lieutenant Masterson (regular)
• Forward air observer Captain Heinzen and his team
• Bazooka Team (regular)
• Medium machine gun team (regular)
• Medium mortar team with spotter (regular)
• Sniper team (regular)

Both forces were around 700 to 750 points.

The missiom resembled the one from the week before:

The secure their advance the Americans sent a vanguard which was ordered to establish an outpost within a large building overviewing the main road of the village (marked with a yellow 1 on the map). The German and Italian had to defed their position and stop theAmerican advance.

Our humble gaming board.

The place where the major events will take place.

Game Report: Bolt Action 09th November 2012

It was Friday evening in a cosy suburb of Düsseldorf were five of us met to play a game of Bolt Action. For me it was the first one and I was a nervous because of the new set of rules, but they proved to be really well designed and smooth-running. At the end of the game the common actions worked well without looking each dice roll up in the rulebook.

But now for the game itself:
Our umpire prepared a nice board with some Italian terrain and a fictional mission which was set somewhere around Anzio. Some Germans were holding a small village while the Americans sent a small force to occupy it for some strategical to maintain supply route from the beach.

The Americans were heavily piqued after there successful Operation Shingle (landing near Anzio) and were keen on driving there advance forward. Therefore they sent a small task force to a small village behind Anzio to secure the bridgehead and arrange a supply route for the following forces.