I swear I'm not dead.... Yet...

So, between work and life lately there has been little time for gaming and blogging.  Getting ready to go to the field for a while and the fun and excitement that is my wife and family has been amazing, but just not as miniature productive as I may have liked.

But with a tournament upcoming and just cause I needed to get out of the no painting rut I did one of my favorite paint promoting tricks, I hit some armour with some colour.

Not a lot of my lists have had recce, but after the joys of my Canadian Universal Carriers, I figured I should try some in my German lists.

Several of the lists I've played in the last little while have either not had a recce option or have had requirements I couldn't fulfill. I've had two 8Rads sitting around for a while but as we've mostly been playing late war my Heer army has required 4 to field any... So they sat...

Wiki article on the 8 Rad

The 8 Rad for those who aren't tracking are a pretty solid 8 wheeled armoured recce vehicle that could be seen as the basis for many of todays AFV's and specifically the inspiration for some of the IFV's like the LAVIII(yup going Canadian on ya here.)

The LAVIII (yeah I know it's a tangent but LOOK AT THIS THING! IT'S GORGEOUS!)

So I decided to go with a three colour cam instead of the usual two that I've been doing with my PanzerGrenadiers.  I figured recce guys would lie, steal and cheat to cam up (the Canadian ones do)
so it would be in keeping with the theme.

 I still have to hit then up with a matt spray to get rid of the decal shine... But I wanted to take a flash picture or two so the weathering (initial) could be seen.

Loved playing these guys the other night, they skulked like this around fields and behind hills and used eyes and ears to help me devastate the Soviet dug in position.

I like em.

I'm going to add more chipping and possibly antennae, but I have no idea where these mounted whips... I'm also debating adding foliage to them. If you have any suggestions, hit me up with a comment. 


Until next time.

Video AAAR

So we tried something a little bit different, playing another MW game with the lists we've been running we had a blast and took some video. Yeah, we're not movie stars that's for sure but we had a lot of fun so that counts right?

We played free for all 1500pts MW with Tyler playing a Schwere Pz Coy and I played the PPCLI (Canadian Infantry in Italy)

Schwere Pz Coy
Tiger 1E OC
2 Pl of 1 Tiger 1E
Pl of Grenadiers (7 stands)
Pl of Panzerwerfers (3 with extra crew)

PPCLI in Italy
HQ
2 x Rifle pl with piat
1 x Rifle pl
2 x UC pl with .50cals
Mg pl with carriers
Mortar pl 4 x 3" tubes
AT pl 4 x 6pdr
Heavy mortar pl 4 x 4.2" tubes
Heavy AT pl 4 x 17pdrs.

I had reintroduced the 17pdrs thinking that would show Tyler the error of his ways, they shot once or twice (and I mean like one or two guns tops) and failed to even bail a tank. 

So here's an overview of the table. Yeah, there should be a bridge in that gap of the river, I took the picture while I was working on painting the bridge, you should see it in the AAR vids.  On the left you can see two vinyards outside of a small Italian village, a river with a small lake separates the village from the local farmlands and linear hills Italy is famed for.

Yeah again we were having fun, have no idea how to edit video and were using an old camera to shoot this. Outside of that you should get how the game went. 

The videos are broken down by turn and following that quick AARs by the two players.

AAR! MW 1500pts Schwere Pz vs Canadian Inf

So this is the table we threw down on last night.  Don't mind the figures we were just setting up at this point.

Tyler was rockin' A MW Tiger company list I had thrown together that he liked the looks of.

Schwere Pz Coy
Tiger 1E OC
2 Pl of 1 Tiger 1E
Pl of Grenadiers (7 stands)
Pl of Panzerwerfers (3 with extra crew)

I had my Canadian list with a twist, not wanting to be a jerk and face down three Tigers with 4 17pdrs I dropped them and my mortars to roll with 3 Shermans... Yeah... MW... That didn't feel like a fair trade but it did make for an awesome game.
 PPCLI in Italy
HQ
2 x Rifle pl with piat
1 x Rifle pl
2 x UC pl with .50cals
Mg pl with carriers
AT pl 4 x 6pdr
Heavy mortar pl 4 x 4.2" tubes
3 Shermans

S

The mission was Dust up and the objectives in the German deployment zone were the road and the dead ground behind the Church.

On my side the Objectives were the road and the large hill that dominated the ground.

Two out of the three tigers were aces. Yeah thats how Tyler rolls. Here is the view from the OC who was watching along the stream from a wheat field.

My Recce move brought me up along his flank, though the thought of rolling 6 universal carriers against 2 Tigers had me worried, for good reason.

Tyler got the first turn and was able to engage and destroy a UC, bailing another as the OCs tiger repositioned and fired on the rifle pl. The PzWerfers opened up pinning the Rifle pl but caused no losses.

In my turn I sped the UCs out and opened up on the two PzWerfers in range, tagging one and putting a dent in the double wide template of the unit.

It wasn't without its danger as Tyler destroyed one of the Carriers while the others disengaged.

We forgot to take a pic of the Infantry assaulting into the Tigers (you can see the smoke) But you can  see the after effect, ie no Rifle pl and no OC, yeah... It was that kind of turn.

 

 Rifle Pl 2 repositioned to try and protect the Objective along the road. While I smoked the tigers.

And ran a diversionary tactic of running for the objective with the UCs

Here's Tyler showing me what he's going to kill, 'Everything around here'. Believe this man when he says things like that.

The next couple of turns were  marked by my reserves showing up,beginning with my Shermans which killed the PzWerfers.  I the proceeded to throw my Pls of UCs and Shermans and everything else I had at the objectives.

This was where the war was to be fought, until Tylers Reserves showed up, a Tiger and the Grens.

He had ran his tiger at the double so I charged it without fear of the defensive fire that has put these Canadians down a few times and managed to pop the tiger with a well placed Piat shot before encircling the woods with the Rifle Pl and the UCs.

Racing forward to try and take out the tiger with my shermans I blew the firepower roll and the mighty beast of war with it's rate of fire three gun was only bailed... I did not feel okay about the situation I had just put them in.

The UC's charged in and finished off the Grens after a huge shooting turn had greatly reduced them, with only the Command team surviving, and he would fail his all on your own test.

In the German turn the three dice fell, with all three shots missing, a small miracle and the OC shot the back end out of one of the Shermans.  The Other sherman passed his morale check and put two shots into the side of the tiger again and this time put it out of action for good.

 

With all his pls dead the OC decided the better part of valour would be to return to the HQ and get some more men, failing his company command check and quitting the field.

I had lost a pl but with 9 it was still a 6 one as everyone else was badly beaten but not quite dead yet.
A great game of amazing disparity but a ton of fun. These Tigers are mean, and only a few lucky rolls separated victory from defeat. The way a game should be.

Until next time.

AAR! MW 1500Pts GpPzGren Vs Canadian Rifle Coy

So my buddy wanted to play, he's been wanting to play for over a month but being away and having to contend with work put a dent in our gaming schedule.  But the day had come and we were able to get in a game after work.  What made this game different was it was our first game of mid war action (I had played MW but not for like 3 years) and he wanted to play with my Germans.

For those who've been following along with this little blog, you've seen I've been working on a new army, my Canadians. And while they aren't yet done (yes there was a little proxy going on) don't hate us for it. It gave me an opportunity to A)see how the force would actually work, and B) get some inspiration to continue working on the force. I got it all right... In droves.

So we set up the table expecting to play a standard short table length game but ended up rolling and were excited to play pincer which I think is the best mission of the new batch, highly tactical and a ton of fun.


Germans list EF GpPzGren List
HQ with Reimer higher Command team
2 x GpPzGren pl with Knackers
2 x 8rads
2 x Armoured Quad AA
1 Tiger
3 x PzWerfers with extra crew

PPCLI in Italy
HQ
2 x Rifle pl with piat
1 x Rifle pl
2 x UC pl with .50cals
Mg pl with carriers
Mortar pl 4 x 3" tubes
AT pl 4 x 6pdr
Heavy mortar pl 4 x 4.2" tubes
Heavy AT pl 4 x 17pdrs.

We forgot to take some initial shots of the battlefield so you'll have to piece it together from the shots.

German side of things. Tyler ran the majority of his force down the riverside of the table (stream: slow going with a bog check) and had one GpPzGren pls with the AA up the middle.

Valiant Canadian Defenders.... 17pdrs set up along the church and the treeline. I hoped they would have a big impact... I was wrong.

The Depth of my force was a unit of UCs with .50cals as a mobile reserve on either side.

This was my defensive position with 4 6pdrs in Ambush.

The UCs would sit back out of site waiting to push forward and help influence the battle.

The game began with a very smart initial recce move by Tyler, which taught me a big lesson in using my recce move as I had decided not to. I learned the error of my ways.

After jumping up table with his 8rads tyler smoked out my 17pdrs and nestled in to a position just short of the small bridge. A few storm trooper moves later and he was done. Special note, his tiger with Schnell of course failed his 2+ and stayed where he started.  His 8rads also failed to stormtrooper which lucky for me left a small space where I could still be concealed for my ambush.

As expected my 6pdrs Ambushed. And a dozen dice later had killed 1... 1.... 1 halftrack... Yeah... Not good. The good news was my UC's with .50cals had raced forward to help and managed to.... um.... Bail a couple more... Things were not looking good.
Upside of my turn the lone 17pdr that could see put a round through the 2ICs car... He was done for the day. 

Tyler moved up the AA into a central position to dominate the ground with 2cm guns and left the 8rads still to engage the UCs. Blowing one up and bailing another.

With some remounting occurring Tyler tried to push the hanomags into an assault but failing to pin the guns had dire effects and two halftracks were killed in the assualt, all in all the pl was left with just the OC, a command stand, one Mg stand and Reimer.

I got a reserve on the first roll and wanting a painted unit I plopped the MG carriers down, probably on the wrong table side but ah well I didn't want to walk the whole way around. A bucket load of dice later and they had no effect on the German advance... BUT THEY LOOKED SO SWEET!

The 2cm AA guns opened up on the 17pdrs.... Which apparently they thought were up in the air... Dice rolling like this was happening on both sides.

The 8rads finish off the first Carrier pl. We didn't get a picture of it but on the other flank the GpPzGren assault and take out two guns, pushing into the church for cover they now contest the obj.

A second reserve unit shows up but fails to pin the few stands in front of it and gets pinned by the MGs and SMGs.

 The Canadians try and take back the church but are beaten back by defensive fire.

This is Tyler realizing his clever Hans roll might be of use if he assaults a building with the Tiger.

This is where there used to be 17pdrs... Before the PzWerfers fired.

Tyler assaulted first with the 8 rad which was bailed out by the lone Piat in the building closest to the tiger. Then in came the tiger which killed a team before the Canadians pushed forward to assault it. The lone piat crew again fired a round which hit something important and the tiger went up in flames... Nobody saw that coming.

Reimer and friends assaulted the Canadians hoping their 2+ in combat would seal the deal but the counter attack killed off all but the higher commander and he was forced back despite his 3+ morale.

He's killed the ensuing round.

As are the AA by the second UC pl, and the 8rad by a 6pdr down the lane.

As you can see it was a bloody affair that left everything on fire. Possibly one of the best games we've played as both of us had a blast and it could have gone either way almost every turn.

So what did I learn? Things change when you're no longer veteran! But that's not a bad thing. Am I going to have to change how I do things? Yup. Even unit selection for reserves should have been very different but in the end I can't wait to play these guys again and even more importantly I'm excited to get painting again so I think it was a win that way. Plus I don't think I've gotten to use that much smoke and fire. /;-)

Until Next time.