WIP Update

Just a short WIP update because you comments were so encouraging. My work with the camp scene is going well and I managed to paint the figures during the past days. This evening I glued them onto a suitable base and used acrylic paste to coat some gaps at the figures' baseplates:

Alltogether I'm satisfied with the intermediary result. No top-notch paintjob though but it will make a nice vignette I hope. Anyway I'm confident to finish them just in time for Curt's first bonus challenge.

So it begins... My start into the painting challenge.

Sunday was dominated by family business. In the mornig I went for a swim with Viktoria and in the afternoon we all took a trip to Düsseldorf and visited the (ice) hockey game of Düsseldorf against Schwenningen in the German Hockey League (DEL). Both was great pleasure and I enjoyed it very much but it delayed my start into Curt's painting challenge slightly.

So monday evening I prepared my workbench to start the challenge with some male delight:

- a glass of sherry to a good challenge,

- a cigar for this very special occasion,

- a cup of my favoured Earl Grey tea,

- a game of hockey in the background

- and -of course- some miniatures to paint

The scene is set...

So the first task for me is the entry for Curt's "Non-Combatants"-round. Last week I found a nice drinking monk which I bought ages ago. It would make a perfectly unmilitary entry but I found it a bit to easy to paint just a single miniature to tap the bonus points. Therefor I stayed with my original idea and started with the AWI camp scene by Perry Miniatures. Since painting went rather well on monday and yesterday I'm confident that I'll finish them until saturday.

I'm not sure how much time I'll have for writing during the challenge but I'll keep you in the loop concerning the my progress.

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.

Preparing the Painting Challenge

Actually my next post was planned to be an AAR from the first of our last two Bolt Action games. But I didn't manage to prepare the pictures. I'm really sorry for that delay since my last post here is now a week old, but preparation of the Painting Challenge was so time consuming that I didn't have the time to edit the pictures for the AAR during the weekend.

So take this as a sign of live and a short preview on the things to come:

Grand Manner's Horsa Glider ready to be primed.

To be honest I can't remember when I prepared that many figures for the last time. During the last days I spent three evenings with deflshing, assembling and cleaning miniatures. But the result is a more or less complete set of the minitures I have on the list for the challenge and in addition some emergency miniatures for the unlikely event that I'm fast in painting then I expect.

Some Perry miniatures and a set of FIW British for "Bloggers for Charity" (by AW Miniatures)

Anyway my main goal is to pass all seven bonus rounds and of course the mandatory entry fee miniature. If my plan works I might get between 400 and 500 points with that. With a bit more enthusiams I could aim 600 points a goal which some well-known bloggers are on target for. Ray, Big Lee, Fran and Clint are duelling for this. Would you let me join your company of 600 points , gentlemen?

KGL Riflemen and other Perry miniatures degreasing.

However I'm really curious about the challenge and I have no idea whether I'll be able to pass my task or not. Nevertheless I presume I'll be an interesting experience and a lot of fun to share this with a lot of nice guys from the bloggosphere.

Cold overcome and Pegasus Bridge assembled

This weekend was rather unpleasant since I was suffering an unpleasant cold. Cough, snuff and headache tortured me and I didn't manage to prepare an AAR from friday where we had a small Bolt Action game to recall the rules. Meanwhile I realized that there aren't too many good pictures but I'll present them later this week anyway.

The bridge in all its beauty.

But the last days weren't in vain since I found the time to finish the largest kit I ever constructed: Warlord Games incarnation of the famous Pegasus Bridge.

The whole terrain piece measures about 85cm x 45cm and is nearly 30cm high. It will definitely dominate any gaming table and momentarily I'm not sure whether I'll build a complete Pegasus table or whether I'll prepare some board tile for the bridge which fit into my current tiles. Anyway this piece is too awesome to place it just somewhere on a blue blanked which is called Caen canal.

The first paras stepping on the bridge.

On this picture you can get an idea of the size of the bridge. I marked the three Red Devils which I placed on the bridge that you can spot them easier. Those are the usual 28mm Bolt Action miniatures.

Momentarily I haven't glued all parts together. On the one hand to be able to place miniatures inside and on the other hand to make it easier to paint the different parts. Probably I'll let some parts unglued permanently to simplify storage and transport.

Anyway it was a pleasure to build this kit. The construction manual was simple but rather clear. The parts were cut extremely accurately and they were easy to remove from the sheets. After this experience I acquired a taste for MDF kits. Maybe I'll try one of the ships which Laser Dream Works offers next year...