MP's and mercenaries from TAG

One more brief painting update while working with recently acquired The Assault Group figures. Majority of those figures are SWAT cops, with various gear and weapons. I didn't want paint all of them in blues, so I decided to paint few teams of modern Military Police in Multicam. Along with PM's I got few Eastern European mercenaries ready.

After these camo clad cops, I'll pop open blue paint pots. It was nice to paint Multicam after break, I'ts quite time consuming, because there's so many colors in and the pattern isn't easy either.

Team of MP's ready.

Marksman with protection.

And sniper team.

Medic and real sniper.

Mercenaries from somewhere east.

Rebs and Freedom fighters from TAG

Little side step from ongoing WW2 painting projects. I came across nice bunch of figures from TAG modern range. They were on sale in leading gaming forum called Sotavasara (all Finnish). All together 70 figs terrorists and SWAT cops. Being modern warfare buff, I couldn't resist.

So now I have groups of civilian dressed warriors toting AK's and AKSU's and other eastern blog weaponry looking cool in sunglasses and sport wear. Good for any "low intensity war" scenario.

Quite nice sculpts and easy to paint, maybe not best of the market but good anyway, and after all it's really matter of taste. Judge yourself, here they are.

Rebels with AK's and gear.

Striped paratrooper shirt and guy looking like the son of the morning star.

Support team.

Sporty fellows with AKSU's.

Next some law enforcement and more rebs...

Bolt Action - Annihilation in the bush.

Our wednesday Bolt Action games continued as we gathered in the club to have a casual game. There were seven of us, maybe the highest number of Bolt Action gamers since we started last spring. Three were having eastern front game and four of us decided to have four player game to field lot of different units, just to se how they work in the game. We had four different colors of dice one for each gamer, so every one was commanding own group of units.

There were German Sturmpionier and Fallschirmjägers facing British infantry and Red Devils, nice mix of regular and elite troops. There was also Hetzer to bolster up Germans and two recce jeeps for British paras.

we had some twenty odd units on each side, so we selected Maximum attrition scenario, just to keep things easy and on to fight we went. Both sides approached enemy very cautiously and after the first runs to good positions troop stayed pretty much were they were. Only Hetzer was moving quite boldly along the road hitting of the Para occupied houses with devastating hit, until it was destroyed by British infantry PIAT team. What would you expect when driving among dense hedgerow. Otherwise game was pretty much small movements from cover to cover and very intense firing. many nasty crossfire situations occured because there was so many units in AO and especially Fallschirmjägers were stuck in the middle of corn field getting fire from seemingly everywhere. They did return the fire though, with their awesome long range firepower.

So after six turns, nothing much had happened, except Germans lost Hetzer and Paras on jeep that drove in the ambush of the German squad. Both sides lost just one unit, so both could claim victory.

Some AAR pictures.

British infantry reaching good positions behind hedgerow.

Germans approach along Hetzer.

Fallshirmjägers about to enter corn field.

Recce jeep

Spectacular end of Hetzer.

Having four players and about twenty units on each side slowed the game turn down a bit, but not that much. The amount of units was just big, that it took time to completed the orders of all of the units. Fortunately the gamers were clearly concentrating on the game so decisions were made quicly, which speeded up the game. Still it took almost a double the time of normal sized game. Anyhow it was once again entertaining game with gentlemen gamers of our club.

Next week some more of this...

Bolt Action - Heer reinforcements

Bolt Action games are running in our gaming club after summer break. And I've been slowly building up my Heer power, to be able to field poor bloody infantry along my elite Fallshirmjäges.

Here's little add on to my Heer Sturmpionier platoon. Got just finalized squad of infantry, sniper team and artillety FO. Next week week they will facing their opponent the Brits.

One more squad of Sturmpieniers.

Artillery FO.

Snioer team.

And fearful Flammenwerfer!

These Sturmpioniere will be facing these tea drinkers next week. More of these Brits on Nojis blog.

Bolt Action - Recon by force

We started gaming Normandy themed games using Bolt Action rules in June. After July's holiday season, we went back to Normandy and had a little fight in a crossroads somewhere in hedgerow country. Mainly we are still learning the rules and the game, but most of all we like to field new and freshly painted models we have. As those nice toys are the thing to do gaming.

The story

However, we also want to place games in some real battlefield and pit fitting enemies against each other. Following that idea we picked point defense scenario from the Bolt Action rule book. The story behind the game was British recon forces aggressive attack on strategically important crossroads in small village somewhere in Normandy in summer 1944. The aim of Brits was to take and hold few critical points around crossroads.

The troops

Attacker had three sections of infantry, command squad and new Humber armored car, which was part of the Guards Tank division. Germans had collected ad hoc group of troops from sturmpionieer battalion and fallschimjäger regiment. They also had 30mm flack as a support.

The way it went down

British started by driving Humber along the road and foot sloggers followed beside hedgerow. During initial approach British artillery punished defending Germans quite badly and after strike Germans were    heavily pinned. This actually gave initiative to Tommies who started firing with all they had and all what Germans were actually able to do was try to survive. After four turns of intense fire fight defenders were shot up. Tommies finalized operation by charging on of the objectives contesting it. So fight ended British recon element holding on objective when another was contested. Badly mauled Germans surrendered and fight was over.

Here's some combat shots of the fight.

Tommies approach cautiously the village.

All seem quiet still.

Recce element driving to village.

And spots german staff gar in the crossroads.

30mm Flak is protecting vital point.

Lieutenant arranging defense.

Germans running to occupy the house.

Tommies prepare for fire fight.

In the end medic had lot to do!

Nice game, even though in the mid of  the game we noticed few rules played wrongly. But still as gentleman gamers we agreed few points and went on fighting. British had fine victory, and we had good game!

Black Powder- To Wagram with AB Cuirassiers

Yet another small painting update and this time with Napoleonic s. We have been gaming 1809 Danube campaign with fellow club members all year long and finally we are about to go for grande finale, the battle of Wagram. The game is now finally scheduled at mid September. As a preparation I have started adding some troops for my collection, and these Austrian Cuirassiers are latest unit to join the ranks.

Figures are AB Miniatures 15mm Austrian Cuirassiers and I must say these are absolutely fine figs all the way. Very accurate and nicely sculpted and real joy to paint, if not a bit challenging. Great animation, anatomy and especially amount of fine detail, which is important in historical figs. So these heavy hitters are proud to join my Austrian 1809 army to meet the French.

Two units of Cuirassiers line up. 

I added flags cause heavy cavalry too them in front.

General de Divisions giving orders. (this is Essex miniature by the way).

Some odd brigadiers.

These guys will go out for some practice next week when they will fight Poles in Ratzyn, little side show before big Wagram fight.

Bolt Action - Hetzer

Those who have been following my blog might remember, that I started collecting Fallshirmjäger platoon for Bolt Action games in our club. Last weekends Ropecon presented an opportunity to bolster up my collection. I picked up this nice little German tank destroyer from a sale of one of the vendor in the show. To be very strict, these tanks probably were never issued by the jäger infantry platoons, rather tank destroyer abteilungs, but I know for sure Luftwaffe had some, so.

This is Bolt Action model and really good one. It's accurate and well made, especially when it is gaming piece, not really modeling one.

The camo was found from Tamiya models box art. It looked nice and I went for it! Here you are Hetzer tank destroyer.

Side view.

And from other side.

Tail end with some mud and exhaust soot.

And business end of the beast.

Next more jägers on the way...