Sapper Joe's Wargaming & Toys

Please Stand By...going off air for a while

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 01:52:00 +0000

Hello, As you probably noticed, I didn't post anything for a while and I let the 30th anniversary of the Argentine landings on April 2nd past by without comment. Without going into details, work has taken priority of my life and all of free time. I had move from a project in Texas to another one in Indiana. I found that my demands for work will quite literary be from sun up to sun set. That means 13-15 hours a day, almost every day for about the next six months. I am setting everything in my personal life aside for the next six months, including this blog. I will try get something up now and then, but only time will know. Like wise, I doubt that I will being replying to any emails/comments any time soon (I am already three weeks behind on that.) What spare time I will have will be spent trying to sort through my 15mm WWII figures to sell off as I did bring a large box of them with me. I plan to sell off about 75%-95% of that scale/project. I will make note on here hopefully in late summer of that sale. Should be several hundred figures and over a 100 vehicles, mostly US and Germany. I have decided to get rid of over half of all of gaming stuff and focus on small projects that I already started on and try not to start anything new for a long time. Lets see if it works out. Be seeing you Joe

Book Sale - After the Battle: The Falklands War, Then and Now

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 03:13:00 +0000

Hello,

I thought I should past on this bit of good news to those who are eligible for this sale. After the Battle Publishing is putting a pretty good sale on their book, The Falklands War, Then and Now. This is an expensive book, but really is worth it for the tons of information and photographs. I have a copy and I am really thrilled with mine. I am going to just paste the sales information below this.

Cheers,

Special offer from After the Battle

April 2 marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Falkland’s conflict. To mark this event, After the Battle has specially reduced the price of The Falklands War Then and Now to £30.00. This is a substantial saving of £17.95 from the normal list price.

This offer is only available for customers who order online with us direct and will end on April 30, 2012 when the price will revert back to its original £47.95.

If you would like to take advantage of this offer, simply place your order online at www.afterthebattle.com before midnight on April 30, and you will receive your copy within fourteen days.

Please note that this offer does not apply to customers in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and can not be used in conjunction with any other offers or discount vouchers.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your custom in the past and we look forward to dealing with you in the future.

Winston Ramsey
Editor-in-Chief
After the Battle.

IABSM3 play test

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:25:00 +0000

Over the weekend of March 3-4, I got to enjoy another game play test of IABSM3. Steve was trying out a scenario for playability and wanted to see if the scenario was too unbalanced. Steve ran the game, Curtis was playing the Germans, and I was running the Russians. The scenario was set in 1941 with a Russian armor force attacking a German armor force. I don’t want to give too much detail, as there some scenario specific events/conditions that in the game and I don’t want to ruin anything for the actual players when this game is run officially. Later, when the game is actually played as an event, I will give a proper AAR.

The system went rather smoothly, even with the amount of armor on the table. The Russians have a major disadvantage of be poorly lead and trained, but have numbers and decent guns for anti-tank abilities. The Germans are better lead and trained, but lack numbers. I played a rather brash leader and failed to do over watches, as I was hoping that a continuous rolling push would get me to the objective and then I would sit it out for a gun battle with the Germans. I could have worked, but cards came up right for the Germans and they successful destroyed the armor unit that came close to seizing the objective. The battle shift heavily towards the Germans then, but by then I had stopped my advance with the remaining forces and battled it out with the Germans. In that aspect, the trade off was more even with the loss in vehicles. But I could not make up for the loss of my lead force, so it was a hands down German victory. But I could take some pleasure in knowing that the German tank ace was killed by the Russian Big Man, who was still alive at the time the game was called. But he ended in a dangerous spot, so it was very possible that I could have lost him in another couple of turns of combat as well.

Anyway, Steve was fairly happy with the scenario, but plans to tweak a couple of things before we run the game officially at a specific upcoming event. Once the officially game is run, I will hopefully get a bunch of pictures and will write up a better AAR on it.

Steve reviewing the charts

An End to an Ace

Well painted Panzers

Next week, if all goes well, I plan to visit the Missouri Historical Museum in St. Louis and see the “Civil War in Missouri” exhibit. I am getting my shutter finger ready to be a picture taking fool there! I still have to sit down and edit, as well as identify/name, my thousands (I am not kidding here) pictures from my sightseeing tours from the last few years. I need to start posting these up on my travel web sites for those who can’t get to some of these out of way places.

Other than that, I know that I stopped with my book reviews as I just ran out of time to type up reviews for the blog and I didn’t want to go back after a long period of time to do one for each book, as I have finished off probably close to a dozen since my last review. But currently I am reading “Blackhorse Riders: A Desperate Last Stand, an Extraordinary Rescue Mission, and the Vietnam Battle America Forgot” by Philip Keith. I am not very far into it yet (maybe 20% of the way in), but it is not a bad book. In a nutshell, the book is about a battle that the paper work was missed filed by the Army and eventually was recovered almost 40 years later. The battle was so significant, once it came to light, that President Obama issued one of the two cavalry troops that made the daring rescue with the Presidential Unit Citation in 2009. Alpha Troop, 1/11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and Alpha Troop, 2/8th Cavalry drove deep into the jungle near the Cambodian border to rescue Charlie Troop, 2/8th Cavalry for being eliminated by a North Vietnamese force that outnumbered number them somewhere between 4:1 and 6:1. Had they not broke through and rescued Charlie Troop, it would have been the largest US defeat in Vietnam with the loss of an entire company of men in a battle. It is well worth picking up if you are interested in Vietnam. Depending on how things go, this might be my Fall Recruits scenario in a cut down version of the rescue mission with probably two platoons of each for the Armored Cavalry and ‘leg’ Cavalry as I already have one armored cavalry platoon and two infantry platoons. I need to read some more about what engagements they hit on the way to the rescue before making up my mind. But as of right now, I am planning to do another Operation Cedar Falls game (or two) at the Fall Recruits. I might even do a Falklands scenario if I get the hills finish for Recruits.

Be seeing you

Cheers

20mm Falklands Project

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:43:00 +0000

As you know, I am pushing to get my Falklands stuff done, especially with the 30^th Anniversary of the Argentine invasion being this April 2^nd. I will not be able to get in a game in on that weekend as I am planning to go to Recruits in Lee Summit, MO, for that weekend. But I should be able to get a couple of games in before June 14^th, which would be the date the Argentine forces surrendered.

Again, due to my work schedule, I have been contracting out my painting to Northumbrian Painting Services, which painted up all of the figures in this entry.

But first up is a picture of my cards for the Falklands, using the Too Fat Lardies, “I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum!” (IABSM) rules and the Falklands supplement from their Season Special. As I mention in one of my previous entries (link), I was using a company called ArtCow to make these cards. I am happy with them and like the finish product. See below for a picture of the final product and these links to see what cards I designed into the decks (link) & (link).

Also, I finished my Blinds for hidden movement for the Falklands. I printed them off and glued them to heavy card stock, the type used for comic books & magazine storage. You will noticed two sizes. First is the 8” wide, which is the recommend width for IABSM. They are taller then what is recommended, but I like the oval aspect for visual appearance. The second size is 3” wide. While it is not in IABSM rules, in their B’Maso supplement, they recommend 3” blinds for squad size elements vs. the 8” blinds for platoons. So I am taking that suggestion for the Falklands too. Also, you probably noticed that I have made blinds for Chile and one with penguins on it. That is because, I will probably get around to doing some figures for the Chilean army to fight my Argentine troops for either the Beagle Conflict in 1978, or a possible assistance to the British in 1982 with the Chile blind. The penguins are an unknown faction to both sides – it might be a group of penguins waddling through or a lost patrol of Argentine troops that either side knew were there. There was several incidents of both sides seeing the troops from the other side, but not sure who they were or even though that they were friendlies.

This first group pictures are from the Argentine 1^st Amphibious Commandos Group, specifically the 16 man team that attacked the Governor’s House on April 2^nd. They are the old Hotspur miniatures. I have also bought, but not assembled the Governor’s House model kit from Card Models by Tony (link). I hope to have that assembled by the end of Spring.

Next few pictures are of miniatures that are done to be either mixed in with my Argentine conscripts shown on previously (link) to have a unit from the 5^th Marine Infantry Bn, or to be used separately to represent the troops for the army’s 601^st or 602^nd Commandos. The size of the force was decided on based on the force at the skirmish at the Top Malo House. They are all Hotspurs, except for the surrendering figure at the far left rear of the picture. He is from Platoon20. The next picture is one of the two 1/72^nd Altaya AAV7A1 amphibian tractor that I got off of EBay. This is the closes model that I could find of the LTVP7 that the Argentine Marines had for Operation Rosario. The only thing noticeable wrong is the headlights and the need for a proper paint job. Finally, the last picture is of the card model kit from Card Models by Tony (link) of the Top Malo house, which these figures will be defending. I got mine, but once again, I still have to assemble it.

I only had a few British figures done specifically done for the Falklands this time around. The following pictures are of those figures. The first picture is a Blowpipe anti-air missile gunner and a Forward Observation Officer. Both are from Liberation Miniatures. The second picture is of the Liberation’s Falkland / Cold War SAS set. The final picture is of the Hotspur’s Falklands SAS set.

These last set of pictures are of 1/144^th scale models of aircraft for the Falklands. There really is a gap of models available for the Falklands in “game” friendly scales. By that, I mean kits that will small enough to not take up a lot of room on the table, but also look right with other figures. Yes, I know that there are 1/72^nd scale kits and that they fit with the miniatures, but I rather not have something as large as a 1/72^nd scale Pucara balanced on a small metal pole over my game table. It is too big and probably out of balance. Anyway the first one is a kit of a Sea Harrier from Academy / Minicraft. I actually have had this kit for many years and never got around to even opening it. The next one is of a Pucara (!). This is available through Small Scale Shop at Shapeways (link). It is available in the two different versions (one flying & one landed). Everything from Shapeways is done by 3D printing on various materials. But what is impressive is that is one piece! The landing gear, the propellers, everything is done on the single piece, in case of the landed version of the Pucara.

The model’s surface is rough, but should be easy to sand down. Also there was a lot of oil on my kits, so they will need a good washing as well.

Finally, with the 1/144^th scale Pucara, I think the Pebble Island raid is very do-able on. Several Pucaras on the table will look decent and they will not take up an acre of space. As you can see from the picture below, the Liberation’s SAS miniatures and the 1/144^th scale Pucara don’t look all that bad together, even with the Pucara being half the size that would be if it was to scale with the figures.

Well, that finally leaves my entry on the IABSM3 play test to still do. I didn’t get many photos that turned out, so it will be a very brief report. Keep your eye out for it.

Be seeing you

Cheers

20mm Anarchy in the UK project

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:30:00 +0000

I have spoken of this project before, but I am just going touch on it again. This is a project heavily inspired by the “Winter of ‘79” blog, as well as my interest in “The Troubles” of Northern Ireland and media like “V for Vendetta” (link), “A Very British Coup” (link), and “Lightforce” (link). Plus it gives me another use to use my Falklands British troops and all of the Hotspur’s Urban Operations line figures that bought back in the ‘80’s. I am not going to create a detailed background of why the Anarchy broke out, other than it just does. The background will change as I need it to for the scenario. Most of the scenarios will be involving a section (8-10 men) or two against a similar size force. But there will be some larger games, mainly riots & sole-sucking space vampires and their victims, which looks oddly like zombies miniatures.

Again, I had commission to have these figures painted by Northumbrian Painting Services.

The picture below is what I am calling the “Home Defence.” This is mostly local and non-military force that will stand up to whatever the threat maybe. While my figures are very heavily armed in the picture, that is because these figures will be mix and matched with the other groups below to create a more rag-tag image of an irregular force and not as a grouping as shown in the picture.

As I see things for my Anarchy games, the Home Defence will be a motley crew that only assembles for combat when action is imminent and not capable for any lengthy battle. Their overall quality will normally be poor, but morale could be very high especially if defending their homes from a much hated enemy.

In this pictures are eight Liberation miniatures (3x Sterling SMG, 2x GPMG from the UKMELTSUP pack, 2x Milkor grenade launchers from the UBR11 pack, and 1x M16 rifleman from the UBRM16 pack) and two Hotspur miniatures. They are wearing mostly civilian clothing with some old bits of Battle Dress uniforms. I need to find some more figures will more "civilian" weaponry that would probably be more realistic for what they would have been armed with, like shotguns, target rifles, and left over WWII weapons.

This next picture is what I am calling the “Militia”. The Militia is better equipped with military clothing and kit then the Home Defence blokes, but not as good as the standing military elements. If you will notice, there are no support weapons in the picture. That is because I will be mixing some of the Home Defence figures with this group during the games.

The idea behind these guys for my games will be that they are a large group of willing civilian volunteers, beefed up with recent ex-service members or a few Territorial’s & Regulars that came out and join whatever militia organization that they represent. While they are better equipped, but still suffer shortages and a lack of a decent logistical supply chain. They are capable of fighting lengthy battles and even campaign for short term operations, but can’t operate too far from supply bases and always lacking heavy support weapons (AT missiles, tanks, air support, etc.)

All of the figures are from the Liberation’s Australian SAS in Vietnam pack.

Next up is what I am calling “Terrorists / Freedom Fighters”. One can argue when is a Terrorist, a Freedom Fighter, and vice versa, but I am not going to go there. They could also be undercover SAS operatives operating behind the rebel Bedford’s Communists Militia lines. These guys are a mixed bag of equipped individuals. But the one thing that almost all of them have in common is their Balaclavas keep their identity a mystery so that after their raid / assassination operation, they can blend back into the local population and hid among them.

All of the figures are from Liberation, but are made up from several different packs: URBAK, URBBARR; URB14, BALAK, and BALRPK

Now, to face up with that last group is our Boys from Hereford. You don’t have to worry about these blokes not knowing the colour of the boathouse! These figures are Hotspurs and are geared up for Operation Nimrod, or as it is better known the Iranian Embassy Siege in 1980. There are five poses and four doubles. Four poses are armed with H&K MP5’s, but one of them has it slung over his shoulder and using his pistol instead. The fifth pose is the SAS operator that was stationed on the ground outside of the Embassy and was coordinate everything with the Police while manning a radio. The only thing that I did not like of these figures is that the radio operator has a drawn pistol, but I understand that it is for dramatic reasons.

What is also nice about this is that Card Models by Tony (link) has a 20mm paper model of Embassy building that is designed to be similar to the Iranian Embassy from 1980. Both of these pictures are from his website. I still have to assemble my Embassy.

The next couple of pictures are of a pre-painted OO scale Railroad building set from Hornsby, the Water Purification Plant. There are the three separate kits that make the plant: the station house, the chlorine tank farm, and the water treatment tank. Needless to say, having a source to potable water is very important and that can need to some interesting scenarios. As you can see in the second picture, things will not be going good for the government player for leaving a single unarmed constable to guard the this water purification plant.

Finally, I want to add the following picture of some non-painted figures, but give everyone a notice of what is going to get worked on next. The following are 20mm UK soldiers in riot gear for the 1970’s or early 80’s. They are from Eureka Miniatures and have to be specially requested as they are not listed in any of their catalogs or website. Nic with Eureka was great to deal with for them. There is only the single pose available. The figure is armed with a baton and the opposite arm is done so a shield can be cut out of plastic and attached. The figure is wearing a respirator and the M1944 helmet. When they are done, they will look great staring down civilian rioters or zombies.

Well, the next blog entry will be over the additional Falklands figures that I had painted up.

Until then,

Cheers

20mm Post Apocalypse and "Dark Days in America" projects

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 04:20:00 +0000

Hello, again! This blog entry will be about some side projects that I am slowly getting miniatures painted for, but have not really done much towards it otherwise. Due to my demanding work schedule, I find it very hard to paint my own stuff anymore. So I have been contracting a UK based painting service to paint my figures, Northumbrian Painting Services. I have been using them to paint almost all of my 20mm figures. Everything in the next few blog entries were painted up by them.

The first line up is my 20mm Post Apocalypse (PA) project. Why 20mm PA? Well, I already have the figures and I like the whole Mad Max, Road Warrior style stories. I will be able to use most of these figures as well as my 20mm buildings and some vehicles from the “Anarchy in the UK” & “Dark Days in America” projects without any troubles. I should only have to have a few vehicles or structures that will not work for one of the other projects. The PA project should be under 100 figures and vehicles for everything.

The figures shown below are all out of the Out-Of-Print (OOP) Citadel’s Dark Future (DF) line for the Games Workshop’s (GW) PA car wars game. They are lovely figures sculpt by Alan Perry. It is a shame that GW dropped the line (as they do with anything I like from them) and that the Perry’s never did anything more for it (I am still hoping that now that they have their own company that maybe, just maybe…). I have a bunch more of the DF figures that I will be getting painted soon. Currently, the only companies that make 20mm PA figures that I am aware of are Stan Johansen Miniatures (link) & Aberrant Games (link). As for PA ‘car wars’ style cars, both companies have some models, but also have bits to convert Matchbox ‘Hot Wheels’ die cast cars into vehicles for the PA theme. There is also a few other companies, like Jada Toys 1/64^th scale Battlecars (link), which only make ‘car wars’ style PA vehicles.

These next two pictures are of a couple of terrain pieces I picked up on EBay a while back. I don’t know who makes these or who painted them, but they look nice enough. I am especially happy that the green car is a right side steering, so it will work fine with my other UK vehicles.

The next set of pictures is for a 1970’s / 80’s US based project, “Dark Days in America”. This project will be the same as my “Anarchy in the UK” project, but in the USA. This project, like Anarchy, will be directed towards smaller skirmish actions (squad size – 12 figures or less per side), or possibly a larger action for certain game scenarios. It will take place in a darker version of American history of the 1970’s & early ‘80’s. The games will be police / criminal actions (bank robberies, etc.), terrorists / insurrection (Symbionese Liberation Army-like groups or Right-Wing Militia groups), riots, and zombies (during their proper time period!)

I already had many of the figures from years ago and plan to down scale various paper gaming model buildings from the WorldworksGames’Mayhem City line (link) & Microtactix’s Twilight Street line (link) from 28mm to 20mm. Civilian vehicles are going to be very hard to find, so I am just going to have to accept the fact that this US has a large amount of UK imports.

The first picture is of some criminal elements, most likely bank or armored car robbers. This group is a mixture of manufacturers. In the back are three figures from Stan Johansen’s J2022 Terrorists set. One is armed with a pistol, another with a double barreled shotgun, and the third is carrying a pump action shotgun and a money bag. In the front row, the two to the left are Hotspurs. The far right figure is from Platoon 20. I am happy these miniatures actually look like robbers instead of terrorists or irregular soldiers with webbing or other light kit. It would be nice to see more of this type of figures for a “Geezers! Shut It!” style game armed with melee weapons (axe handles, knives, etc.)

The next two pictures are US SWAT teams from different time periods. The first team is for the 1970’s, which I asked to be painted up in the spirit of the old TV show, S.W.A.T. (link) They are also in similar to the SWAT team in the opening of the 1978 movie, “Dawn of the Dead”(link). All of the figures are Hotspurs, except for the sniper on the very far left. I don’t know what company he came from, but I had him for many, many years. He might be from the long OOP Grenadier ’s Twilight 2000 line from back in the mid ‘80’s. He fits in perfectly with the Hotspurs for size, style, and uniform.

Anyway, the figures are heavily based on the original SWAT team from the Los Angeles Police Department from back in the 1970’s (which is what the TV show was based off of too.) There are six different poses, of which there are five more doubles for the whole team. The sniper is armed with a bolt action rifle with a scope. Then there are three poses that are armed with M16A1’s automatic rifles with pistols in their holsters. Next is a figure that is armed with a pump action shotgun and a pistol is his holster. Finally, the remaining pose is an officer holding a revolver with a tear gas gun slung over his shoulder. I really like the fact that these guys are very 1970’s in style.

The original LAPD SWAT was created to be a “true” para-military unit. The city was convinced that the radical left wing movements or a race riot would breakout into a sort of Hue City battle in LA, so they create the SWAT team to combat this threat and not to carry out arrest or hostage rescues. Most of the original SWAT members were ex-military and trained to use the sewers to infiltrate and carry out combat operations behind “enemy lines.” They eventually realized that this would not be the case and got into the police role that they are mostly used for today. It is keeping with the original intent of the SWAT that plays into my “Dark Days” project.

The next picture is a SWAT team for the 1980’s. As the role of SWAT was realized that they were for short duration arrests or rescue operations in a contained urban area and not long term urban combat over a vast area, that the weapons and tactics changed. As one can see with these miniatures, the bulky M16A1 rifle has been replaced with the compacted H&K MP5 submachine gun. Also gone are the revolvers from the previous set to be replaced with semi-auto pistols. The SWAT members wear mask and goggles for protection of their face and their identity, as well as to cause a more imposing image to frighten the criminals. They lack the heavy body armor and helmets that would start being available by the mid to late 80’s, and would be a common scene on all SWAT teams by the 90’s.

All of the figures are Hotspurs. There are five different poses and four doubles. Three of the poses have officers armed with the MP5 SMG and pistols. One of the three is aiming with his pistol instead of his MP5, which is slung over his shoulder. The fourth pose is an officer holding a pump action shotgun. The final pose is a sniper with a rifle and scope.

Next up is the some Very Important Persons (VIPs) and their bodyguards. They could be a high ranking politician and assigned Secret Service / State Police bodyguards, or maybe a corporate CEO and some hired civilian contracting agency. The bodyguards are armed with semi-auto pistols and Uzi SMG’s. Again, all of the figures are from Hotspur.

Finally, while they don’t fit in the time frame, they do fit in the mind set. The following two figures are a pair of FBI agents that travel around the US investigating unusual criminal cases, which sometimes have a tint of the supernatural about them.

“Agent Anderson, take a look at this.”

“What is it this time, Dutch, a werewolf on a cruise ship?”

Both figures are the OOP Citadel’s Dark Future figures. I did trim off the pony tail on the male figure as there is no way J. Edgar Hoover would allow one of his men to wear a pony tail.

Next blog entry will be over the newly painted figures for the “Anarchy in the UK” project.

Cheers

C'est le Congo Pt II and what is going on with me

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:10:00 +0000

Well, first I am sorry that I have not been updating my blog or doing much towards gaming, including gaming. But work has my sole and my time.

Anyway, I got a chance to take some pictures of the miniatures that I had painted up from my last batch finally, as well as some EBay or other purchases that I have made recently towards gaming. But there is quite a bit to do in one blog, so what I am going to do is break them down into several blog entries over similar topics.

Also we had another play test of IABSM3 that I will be covering along with some pictures. But it might be a few days between each entry as my work schedule is still staying in high demand. I will try to type them up on Word and later cut & paste them over on to my blog (which means I might even get two entries up the same night, but don't count on it.)

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera to the play test game and had I done so, I would have realized that my camera’s batteries were dead before I started taking pictures late that night. So I had to use my crappy cell phone’s camera and that is why the pictures are not very good. Remember to click on the picture for a bigger version.

First up – 15mm "C’est le Congo"

I already have quite a few miniatures for post-WWII African conflicts, which can be seen on this blog under the "tag" of "B'Maso" for the name of the rules set that I will be using for the Congo games. I did sold off a large number of my stuff 2 or 3 years back, but I still keep a pretty large force both painted and unpainted miniatures. This project will actually be started in 2013, but I am going ahead and picking up some of the figures & vehicles I need this year. To meet that goal, I bought some 10 figure, 20mm circular mob bases from Litko. I will be using these bases to move the various tribal / irregular mobs with as you can see with this picture below.

Peter Pig Militia miniatures on a Litko base

As you can see, I am remounting my figures on to pennies as well so they can be used with the mob bases.

Before I go any further, while I really, really want to do the 1960’s Congo Crisis, (I have been amazed by that conflict since a child after watching Dark of the Sun (link) on TV) but the proper vehicles for the period for the UN (which was heavily involved in the fighting) and civilians are just not available. I am going to start contacting various companies to see if I can convince them to make some models just for me or as release if I get enough support (like S&S Models 15+ Club). So, I am going to do a faux African country in an unspecific year for my games, but heavily mirrors the history of the 1960’s Congo Civil War (so it is possible for Hind gunship to pop up in the games.) But I still really want to do the ‘60’s.

So with that noted, I made the following purchases off of EBay and Hobby Link Japan for the following jets for the Congo game. For the Katanga “Rebel” State, I was able to buy an old Out-Of-Print Heller Starfix model kit of a 1/100^th Fouga Magister II.

1/100th Fouga Magister II from Heller

Towards the beginning of the 1960 Congo Crisis, the Katangan Air Force had three Magister jets converted to be ground attack aircraft. Due to various reasons, they only had one functioning jet by the time the conflict begun broke out between the Katangan forces and the UN. The lone Magister was flown by the mercenary pilot, Joseph Deulin. He flew unchallenged for quite some time as the UN failed to bring any fighter jets with them to their Congo mission to control the air. It was not until the UN’s Ethiopian F-86’s and the Swedish J29’s showed up, that Deulin was finally check in his daring raids. And speaking of the Swedish J29’s, I was also able to buy from Hobbylink Japan a 1/144^th J-29B with UN decals from Fairy Kikaku.

1/144th Swedish J29 Fighter with UN Markings

I am not concern that the two kits are not in the same scale as for 1) Neither where involved in dogfights and 2) unless I go to 1/72^nd scale, there are no other kits of both planes in the same scale.

10mm Vietnam

My plan is to run at least one Vietnam game for the Fall session of Recruits this year in Lee Summit, MO. I will be working on re-basing some stuff, making new blinds for hidden movement, and painting up more NVA. The reason for me to mention about this in this specific blog entry is because I also bought from Hobby Link Japan a 1/144^th Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces in the 1950’s kit set. In that set is a M42 Duster and a jeep with a 106mm recoilless rifle, both will work for my 10mm Vietnam, especially for convoy actions. I forgot to take a picture of the kit…sorry!

If everything goes good, the next blog entry will be about my upcoming 20mm Post Apocalypse and 1970's / '80's "Dark Days in America" projects. These projects will be small in size for number of figures and will have some figures double with my "Anarchy in the UK" project.

That is it for now.

Cheers

C'est le Congo

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 02:01:00 +0000

Many, many moons ago, I started doing 15mm post-WWII African conflicts. Some of those figures are among the first ones on this blog. Less than ten years ago, I boxed up that project and moved on to others, as with my normal cycle of interests. Once again, that loop is almost complete. My interest in the African conflicts, specifically the 1960's Congo civil war has been sparked up again by my current readings.

Thanks to the easy of my Kindle Fire, I have purchased several books on the Congo conflict, specifically about the Irish UN troops. I am also thinking about re-reading my Mike Hoare books.

Yes, I have started and stop so many projects before, but I think I am going start this project up again as soon as I finish up the bulk of my 10mm Vietnam project which will be pushed to the front along with the 20mm Falklands. I am going to miss the 30th for the Falklands in April/May other than maybe a few more games without the proper terrain. I am going to push for a proper game in the Fall at Recruits in Kansas City as well as a 10mm Nam game. The following year, I would like to be running a 15mm Congo game and secret project, “Project R”.

I am also going to try to spend some time over the weekend and update my links and blogs sections and possible get a couple more blog entries up.

Be seeing you

Joe

Come on baby, light my fire...my Kindle Fire

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:33:00 +0000

Well, between work and being sick, I have not been able to add anything of any use to my blog. So, let’s talk Kindle Fire.

I don't think that I said this before, but for Christmas I got a Kindle Fire e-reader. I really like it, even though I have some issue with it, like a lack of a physical volume control, a reset button, and the quirkiness of web search browser. But, so far I still really like it.

This is not a review of the Fire, but more of how I plan to use it towards gaming. Of course the most obvious is reading books on it for research on different periods. What is nice about it is the lack of space and weight that several books will take up, especially since I have to do a lot of travel for my job.

It is rather nice size and easily fits in my back pocket (I hope I never forget that it is there and sit down!) I can also download through my computer or on Amazon’s Cloud internet storage many PDFs, Word docs, Excel docs, and JPGs of various gaming / research documents or rules. So that is rather nice too.

I have loaded my up with various Too Fat Lardies rules and specials, plus other rules, scenarios, maps, pictures, etc., so I can look up things at a game or elsewhere. I have not figured out how to do PDF searches yet, so I am not such if that is a workable function. Also, I have not tried to create any Word documents on it yet, but I have the free version of Quickword, which does not have the editing program. But I will be buying that soon, so I can take notes during a game for After Action Reviews of the game.

Other then the quirky issues I have with it that I mention above, I only have two main issues with it: 1) No 3G/4G wireless (a lot of places don’t offer free wireless service), and 2) small internal storage, which would not be a problem if the previous issue was corrected. So far, I have not had any issues with too much on the hard drive, and I have 20 music albums, 30+ books, and about 100 PDFs on it already. But I have not downloaded any movies on it, so I don’t know how much memory that would take up. I should be good for a while.

Over all, I am happy with it.

I think I am in love…

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:54:00 +0000

I found this following YouTube video from one of the forums that I am on. It is a very cute German teacher who is rather funny and partly a geek! She builds a collapsible Dr. Who's TARDIS! I wish I had her for a teacher.

I also couldn’t help but keep hearing Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” in my head as I watch her video.

Anyway, I have been working on some more posts regarding the Falklands, but still have to do some more research before posting. I will hopefully have some more up later this week.

Cheers,

Joe

Movie Review: “The Iron Lady” (2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:01:00 +0000

I liked this movie! Meryl Streep well deserves every award and nomination that she gets for her role as Margaret Thatcher. This movie is about Margaret Thatcher, the woman that rose to power as one of the longest lasting Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and not about her policies. They touch on her policies, as it would not be possible not to without explaining her decline as the head of her party. Whether you like Thatcher or despised her, one can’t deny that she was a powerful figure in the British politics.

The movie is done through flashbacks, after Thatcher has suffered her strokes and memory losses. While I don’t recall them ever giving an actual date when the modern day scenes are suppose to be taking place, one event where they place an statue of her in Parliament and that occurred in Feb., 2007. As part of her memory lost, she is repeated visited by her dead husband, Sir Dennis Thatcher, played by Jim Broadbent.

There are scenes in the movie that touch on what I am doing for my Falklands project and the Anarchy in the UK project. The Falklands section is probably only 5 to 10 minutes long, but was very interesting, especially with her meeting with the US Secretary of State, Alexander Haig and the scene dealing with the sinking of the General Belgrano.

Again, I enjoyed it and think it is worth the seeing if one is interested in the 1980’s UK.

Cheers,

Joe

IABSM3 Play test – Falklands

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:19:00 +0000

Well, this Sunday we did another play test of IABSM3 to introduce more of the rules like indirect fire, snipers, and night fighting. We did this play test at Wargamer’s Cave (link) again, but this time using my 20mm Falklands figures. The scenario was a fictional engagement of two platoons of UK Para’s with some support (a SFGPMG team, a Carl Gustav team, and a half battery of 105mm on call) vs. a weak platoon of Argentine Army Commandos with some support (a SFGPMG team, a section of 81mm mortars with a FOO, and a sniper). Steve H. was running the Para’s and Curtis T. was running the Commandos. Each Para figure was equal to two men and the Commando figures were 1 figure to 1 man. I didn’t get my Falkland’s Blinds done, so I was using Viet Cong blinds for the Commandos and the Para’s did not start under blinds. I also did not get my Art Cow cards yet either.

The background of the scenario is that the Commandos were camped out at a farm, but expecting a push by the British, was able to deploy his platoon and support in about the center of the board. The Para’s were on a time schedule, so had to advance in a fairly straight line until an engagement broke out.

I failed to take photographs until about half way through the game. So, what happen earlier in play test was the Commandos were very observant and spotted the Para’s right off at the get go, but the Para’s were have some problems spotting until their Big Men started using their flares. Thanks to the flares and the poor dice rolling by Curtis, the Commandos were losing men, but doing no damage to the Para’s.

One of the Para platoons laid a base of fire as the other started to flank the Commandos. The Para’s never got their FOO in to a position to call in the 105’s, but the Commandos were able to eventually get their 81’s to fire for effect on one of the Para sections. The flanking Para platoon crested the hill next to the Commandos. With that, the Argentine commander orders the one section of Commandos still around to charge up the hill against two Para sections. It did not go well for the Commandos.

At the end of the game, fourteen Argentine Commandos were killed, mostly from the charge up the hill. Three Para’s were killed, with two from the Commando charge and one from the mortar attack. I think everyone enjoyed the game, but we still need to get more familiar with the new Big Man rules.

Argentine Commandos in defensive positions

The Para Platoon making a flanking attack

Preparing to cease the hill crest

Moments before the Commando's charge

The Commando's charge

The result from the Commando's six dice, two Para's killed

The results of the Para's 20 dice, 12 Commandos killed

Falklands, IABSM3, Litko, and Art Cow

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:07:00 +0000

I have been a busy guy this last two weekends and during the week on working on a side project that started 9 months ago. I finally got it done today…YEA!

As you know, I am really pushing to get into gaming the land combat of the Falklands conflict this year. Part of this includes choosing a rules set and getting what is needed to run a game. My 20mm figures are mostly done that must have, but I am still missing a few figures mainly more Milan ATGM teams and Argentine .50cal HMG teams and got them on order from Liberation (Link). I still have other odds and ends that I need to pick up like an Argentine shoulder launcher SAM, a Panhard 90mm Armored car, penguins, buildings, and terrain. Luckily, the Panhard is available from S&S Models (Link), the penguins are back again from MJ Figures (Link), some buildings are available from Card Models by Tony (Link), so I need to do is convert a UK Blowpipe figure to look like an Argentine commando from Liberation (plan to use the figure with the beret so I should only have to modify the webbing) and get terrain done.

So, now for the rules, I plan to use Too Fat Lardies’ “I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum!” 3^rd edition for the company size battles. In the 2004 Xmas Special from TFL is a supplement for IABSM2, but I also have the information on how to convert the IABSM2 to IASBM3 for Big Men, so no problem there.

Since I will only have about a platoon “+” size force for both sides on a 1:1 scale, I will use 4-5 figures on a base to represent a section for the games. I plan to leave my figures mounted on individual stands for skirmish games, so I am going to pick up some bases that have the round holes in them that I can place my figures in, like these from Litko (Link) or these (Link).

Also, I am picking up some more different type of tokens from Litko for the IABSM3 system. I already have the following Litko's IABSM set (Link) so I am going to keep the tokens along those lines in design. But for keeping track of “Kills” and “Shock” on individual sections and teams, I will be using a device from S&S that hold three 7mm six-sided dice and looks like a trench. I plan to paint and flock it up so they will blend in on the board. I will be using red dice to keep track of “Kills” and white dice for “Shock.”

Now, this is where Art Cow comes into play. Too Fat Lardies games are a card driven game for sequence of play during a turn. While I got my IABSM3 card deck with the IABSM3 bundle, I wanted a special Falklands card deck with pictures from the conflict. Art Cow allows people to create various art projects with photographs and one of those projects is a 54 card playing deck. So using that program, I designed two playing decks, one for the Argentine forces and the other for the British. Both decks combined will have everything I need to play the Falklands scenarios from the TFL’s Seasonal Specials, 2004 Xmas and 2008 Xmas issues. Since there were too many cards for one deck, but not enough to complete two decks, I added some extra cards. Some of these cards, ‘Critical Wound’, ‘Medic’, and ‘Medical Evacuation’ are from the “Charlie Don’t Surf” Vietnam rules, but I think plays into the Falklands as well from what I have read. I also added some sections and team cards which could be used for independent patrols.

http://www.artscow.com/gallery/playing-cards/tfl-iabsm-falklands-cards-argentine-o46iru6o0378

http://www.artscow.com/gallery/playing-cards/tfl-iabsm-falklands-uk-cards-xwursu7uzvee

I can’t wait to get everything together and start gaming the Falklands soon, hopefully.

Cheers,

Joe

2012 - the 90th anniversary of the end of the Newport Rolling Mills Strike, Kentucky

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:22:00 +0000

OK, I was Google surfing today looking for some pictures of armored vehicles used the Falklands and I some how got side tracked (which is actually very easy for me when I am looking up historical photographs.) I am not really sure how I got to the following as I was not looking up anything that related to the following. But behold, I found the picture that haunted me since I first saw it on the Ken Burn's documentary, "Prohibition" (Excellent show and excellent book, see my review here - Link). If you have not noticed from some of my earlier post, I have had a long fascination of the 1920's and 1930's, especially the Rum War (the enforcement of Prohibition) and the War on Crime (bank robberies and other lawlessness of the 1930's). I have also found some of the labor strikes interesting, but really have not started reading up on them, even thought I have a dozen or so books on the subject, mostly on Blair Mountain. It is some thing that I have often thought of dabbing in miniature, but really have not yet. Anyway, this is one of those pictures that really gets my attention and really start thinking about gaming the period.

The picture is a FT-17 tank from the Kentucky Army National Guard crushing captured moonshine stills during the Newport Rolling Mills Strike. The National Guard was sent in on Dec. 24th, 1921, and the strike did not end until April, 1922. Two National Guardsmen were killed during the strike duty and both by accidental discharges of a revolver falling and striking the ground and discharging. This was two different events, which I also find amazing. Below is another picture from the strike.

Of course, this could also stir some one's interest in doing a 2nd American Civil War in the 1920's or 30's that is something in the line of the popular gaming period, "A Very British Civil War." But that is too much for me to consider to game due to other commitments, but it idea is keen.

2012 - And the 30th Anniversary of the South Atlantic War

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 21:21:00 +0000

Happy New Year, 2012 – The last year of Man! (Or at least to New Age Mayans.) But more importantly, this is the 30^th Anniversary of the South Atlantic War over the Falklands / Malvinas Islands. I am hoping to be running some 20mm games for this conflict during this year. The only thing really holding me back is terrain of bunch of hills, but I am trying to fix that.

Anyway, I have finally given up on my search for trying to find a correct model of LVTP-7 for the Argentine Marines in 20mm. At first, all I could find were 1/72 Dragon kits, of which none were right. All of them have the Up Gunned Weapons Station (UGWS) turrets, which are not correct for the Argentine LVTP-7’s, all though one kit has the old turret which would work. Next problem is that all of the Dragon kits have the ramp / cattle guard looking thing on the front (I am not into studying the Marines, so I really have no clue what that thing is called or what is used for at all.) That would not be so bad, but I would have to cut down the “bumps” on the front from the cattle guards hinges to make the front smooth for the Argentine Marines LVTP-7s. Finally, the headlights are all wrong. The Argentine LVTP-7s had the three lights in each of two circle indentations, where the Dragon models have the current two sets of two rectangular lights on the front. But I recently find that Altaya released a 1/72^nd collectible of an AAVP7A1. It still has the wrong headlights, but at least it has the right looking turret and no cattle guard. So, I order two of them to armor up my 20mm Argentine platoon. Now I need to order a 1/72^ndPanhard 90mm from S&S Models to give my Argentine conscripts something to fight with my British Scimitar light tank. I also have on order from Liberation some figures that I am hoping to convert to work for Argentine .50 HMG and 107mm Recoilless Rifle teams, but I am still looking for some figures that would work for the M20 Super Bazooka teams without heavy conversions. Then I should be done with my Argentine forces in 20mm, except maybe for a helicopter or two for an air insertion scenario.

See the pictures below for the Argentine LVTP-7 and the kits.

Argentine LVTP-7s in Port Stanley

Dragon 1/72nd AAVP7

Altaya 1/72nd AAVP7

Also, I am putting up a picture of an Argentine TAM tank which I found will searching for pictures of the Altaya model of the AAVP7. They did not see action in the Falklands War as they were still under trials and final production. I am only including this picture as I really find the paint job pretty cool.

Finally,I am putting up a picture of one of rare photographs (possibly the only one also) of the Top Malo house before it was destroyed in 1982. It is from the 1930’s and I got it from Gordon Ramsey’s, “Falklands War Then and Now.” Excellent book if you are looking for photographs on the Falklands war.

Falklands - Argentine improvised weapon at Goose Green

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 04:20:00 +0000

This is a quick post of a picture that found of an Argentine improvised weapon that was located at Goose Green. I had forgotten about it until I was looking up a picture of the Top Malo house for Tony at “Card Models by Tony” (Link) and I relocated it. I find this amazing myself and will have to scratch build it for my 20mm Argentine conscripts to try (that would be the key word!) to use it against the 2 Para.

The weapon is a 2.75” rocket pod from a Pucara strike aircraft tied down to a wooden crate. The crate is mounted on top of children’s slide in the settlement. The weapon was to be aimed by using the step ladder that is seen in the picture and then to be fired by an electrical charge that was connected to a car battery!

Cheers,

Joe

Too Fat Lardies I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum! III – Review & AAR

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:23:00 +0000

This AAR blog entry is different than my previous ones in that this was not a ‘proper’ game, but a play test of Too Fat Lardies’ new third edition of “I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum!” with Steve H. (Combat Colours) , Curtis T., and myself. Both Steve and I have played the previous editions of IABSM, but both of us have not played IABSM for a few years due to various reasons, mainly the lack of my free time and trying Blitzkrieg Commander/Cold War Commander and Force on Force systems instead. Needless to say, it was like coming back home to a long lost love by using these rules! I enjoy them greatly!

First, both Steve and I bought the IABSM3 bundle, a hard copy and a PDF version of the rules, a pack of cards for game sequence, a pack of tokens, and finally a limited edition 28mm figure of one of Too Fat Lardies’ Big Men characters, Hugh Jarce. See the Official Too Fat Lardies blog, ‘Lard Island News’ (Link) to see what the cards and markers look like.

The Book / PDF

I really like the quality of the printed book and find it easy to read. Too Fat Lardies have come a long way since their first printed materials, and I know that they will only improve in the future. I have become a big fan of PDF’s for the last few of years. I really like the lack of physical space needed for storage of tomes of books or other printed material. With PDF’s , I am more willing to make impulse buys on different rules, books, etc. of systems I am not familiar with or periods that I would not be normally be interested in since they take up space on my bookshelves. The only problem that I have with PDF’s is not been able to use them at games, except if I printed them off before a game. (Note: Up to now I didn’t have an iPad or E-reader, but I got a Kindle Fire for Xmas so this issue is now moot.)

Cards / Tokens

The cards are huge! That is not a bad thing, but will take a bit of getting use to shuffling cards that are bigger than traditional playing card size. Quality is good with a heavy stock and simple, but easy to read writing on them. The tokens are the only thing that I am not super please with (Sorry, Richard!) I think that some of them are too small, thin, and fiddly for fat fingers, especially the “wrenches.” I have not measured them, but they seem smaller then the Litko tokens which I am use to using. It probably is just me. Of course, I am planning to use 7mm dice to keep track of shock and kills on my infantry squads…so just ignore my comments on the tokens being too small.

Hugh Jarce

I like the figure! Great sculpt and casting, but it is in 28mm. I don’t game WWII in 28mm. But that has not stopped me from buying 28mm before. I plan to paint it up and I might use it somehow with the game – maybe a counter to keep track of how many Tea Breaks have occurred.

The Game Mechanics

As the gaming system is a proprietary item, I will not go into detail of it, but I will explain the rudimentary system of it. First, this is a game built heavily on the idea of “Friction” in the battlefield as explained in Carl von Clausewitz’s book, On War. A great article on the theory of friction in war was done by Richard Clarke on his blog. (Link) Secondly, the system is also built around the idea of “Big Men” or leaders influencing their men to go beyond what would be expected of them in battle. Finally, the other core element is the cards which randomize the sequence of play. See the following blog entry by Richard Clarke on the cards. (Link) Just look up some of the other blog entries at “Lard Island News” to see them give AAR’s of their past games to get a better idea of the system as well. One final note about the system, it encourages gamers to know about the period, tactics, and to have an understanding how to properly Kriegsspiel certain events or conditions that might occur in a game.

Our Play Test

As this was our first IABSM game in a few years, it did move rather slow at spots as we double checked certain things in the book, but once we got a few rounds in, it was all clicking back. We stuck with the core rules and did not use artillery, engineering, or Aces.

The game was using Steve’s 10mm late war WWII Germans and Soviets from various manufacturers. He did not have any German infantry, so my 10mm WWII US infantry stands stood in for the Germans. This specific game was armor heavy, by pretty much all standards and especially IABSM standards. Steve was Game Mastering it, Curtis T. was running the Soviets, and I was running the Germans.

The Location / Store

We meet at the Wargamer’s Cave in Granite City, Illinois to do the play test. Great place to deal with. See the following link for their website (Link)

The Forces

The overall objective of the game was to have the Soviets advance across the board and capture the supply dump on the opposite site of the board and the Germans trying to stop them

They Soviets had two JS-2 tanks, five T-35/76 tanks, six M4 (76) tanks; three platoons of infantry, three platoon ‘Big Men’, one company ‘Big Man’, and four blinds + two dummy blinds.

The Germans had three Tiger I tanks, three Pz IVH tanks, two Marder III SPAT’s, two platoons of infantry, two platoon ‘Big Men’, one company ‘Big Man’, and three blinds + two hidden groups on the board.

Instead of using the blinds as described in the rules, we used the unit’s cards to represent their blinds on the table until proper blinds are made.

The Action

Ok, I did not take notes as this was a play test or a lot of pictures as I did not have a camera and my cell phone does not do good quality pictures. Plus, I really did not get to debrief Curtis about his actions after the game as I had to leave pretty fast at the end of the play test. So this AAR is very German player (me) focus and just comments on the pictures instead of the game as a whole as I would normally do.

This is a picture of the part of the store, with Curtis and Steve in it as well. Most of the board can be seen in the picture. The Soviets were advancing from the table edge near the lime green tape measure. One hidden German infantry platoon is entrenched along the road in the wheat fields near the village. In the village is the second German infantry platoon on a blind. This picture was taken after some action already had happen. The two burning markers almost center of the picture at the bottom near the farm complex are my two Marders. I had them set up in a blind that was partly hidden by the forest. They both got a couple of shots on the lead JS-2 and did hit it for some minor damage, but they were quickly destroyed before they got another action. The JS-2s and some tank riders are in the wheat field near the burning Marders.

Curtis is pointing to the farm complex as his attempt to spot any hidden units. It was vacant. This also is a better picture of the burning Marders and JS-2’s. If you look at the JS-2 unit, you will see a red chit out in front of one of the JS-2’s. This is a marker to help keep track of what unit that is for players to remember that group is “Armour One” (A1 on the chit) for when cards are drawn. Behind the other JS-2 is a dark color token that is a “Loss of Action” token that comes with the IABSM3 bundle. That was being used to represent the one level of shock that I did to that tank from my Marders. The three “I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum” cards around the group are being used for three Soviet blinds.

This is a better view of the table as a whole. The German blind of the infantry in the village can be seen in the crossroads and on the far bottom left is the blind for the platoon of PZ IVH. On the only hill is my remaining German unit hidden, the Tiger I platoon. I was holding off on firing them until I had the JS-2’s within close range.

Curtis drove his Shermans down the road without any recon. Prior to that, the German Blind card came up, so I had all of my blinds / hidden units on over watch, so when Curtis’ tanks drove past me, I started letting loose with Panzerfausts and machine gun fire, from both the hidden infantry in the wheat fields, the infantry in the village that was set up to provide supporting fire with range for their Panzerfausts, and my Pz IVH that where set up on the other side of the board for side shots on armor. As you can see, it was pretty deadly with taking out three and crippling a fourth of the six tanks and almost eliminating one Soviet squad to the man, but it could have been worst for Curtis. I decided not to use my Tigers as I was still waiting for the JS-2’s to get closer.

I took these after the game was called, so some of the tokens were already picked up by then. In the last turn, Curtis could not sort my entrenched infantry out as I keep shooting and hunkering down. The T-34’s drove around and hit my Pz IVH’s in the flank and killed one and damaged a second. The JS-2’s never did move, so I elected to open up with my Tigers on the JS-2’s. I killed one outright with my first shot (hint, it is nice to be shooting down from hill!). The other JS-2 took the brunt of the remaining Tigers, but I was never able to really damage it. It had in returned destroyed one of the Tigers.

Overall

The Germans blocked the Soviet advance temporary, but the Soviet would have eventually put enough pressure on both of my flanks that I would have to pull out. The Soviets lost five tanks and two squads of infantry by the end of the game, which was about a third of his total force. I lost two tanks and two SPATs, which was half of my armor, but only about a third of my total force.

The game went really good and we all had fun with the system again. Even though this was a lot of tanks on the table for an IABSM game, it ran very smoothly and we can easily run this much again. It was really nice to be able to sit down again and to have good discussions on proper tactics, the period in general, and general comradeship as a whole.

I know Steve is going back to his roots of IABSM by painting up 15mm WWII figures again for the 1941 Russia. Hopefully he will get that running soon again. I am planning to redo my 10mm Vietnam figures and start running Too Fat Lardies’ “Charlie Don’t Surf” soon, as well as push for some 20mm Falklands games in 2011 using either IABSM3 for company actions or Too Fat Lardies’, “Troops, Weapons, & Tactics” for platoon actions.

MILLENNIUMCON 14 AAR Part II: Too Fat Lardies - Charlie Don’t Surf

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 20:06:00 +0000

This was my first game that the convention and the one that I enjoyed the most of the two. It was called “The Great Rice Hunt” and it is the first scenario from the TFL’s CDS scenario book, “Surf’s Up!” It was run by Brian Weathersby and I think he did a pretty good job. There were some rough moments where he was having troubles explaining thing, but he even admits to that on the TFL Yahoo Group, but I didn’t have too much of problem. I was the one of the three US players and I commanded the 2^nd Platoon. While this was my first game of CDS, I had read the book and played in TFL games before, so I was sort of familiar with the rules and I had done some reading on Vietnam tactics in the past and even coached my follow US players on some tactics since neither were familiar with the rules or period. However, I really didn’t use any tactics in this game…I was pretty much the proverbial bull in the china shop…but more on that later. I pretty much know what I was thinking as the game progress, so I can only make comments about what I did and what was easily known on the board. Also, I started to write this AAR weeks later, so I probably got some things wrong and only remember the highlights for me, sorry if it drifts too much from what really happened.

Overall picture of the game board

Originally, I was pushing for a two platoon push from one end of the board and my platoon acting as a blocking force on the opposite end to shoot up fleeing VC. We all agreed on that plan, but then told that we had to come in all on the side table edge, so we changed our plan. We had four blinds: 3x platoons and one dummy blind. The dummy blind was our far right flank, then 3^rd Platoon, 1^st Platoon & CO HQ, and then my 2^nd Platoon on the far left flank, which also was large jungle area that I would had to move through. The center of the village was in front of 3^rd Platoon and the idea was that 3^rd Platoon would move up through the rice paddies and take up positions to provide cover fire into the center to the village. 1^st Platoon and CHQ would start sweeping through the right edge of the village looking for VC caches in the huts. My platoon would move through the jungle and block the road out of the village between the jungles. I failed to remember how hard it was to move through jungle, both in real world and in the system. I also failed to remember that I could have gone into “Indian file” movement which would have sped up my movement rates. I was barely moving 3” per turn that I moved.

Pretty much on the first turn, both 3^rd Platoon & 1^st Platoon were spotted by a VC machine gun team and a squad sitting in a trench in the wide open in the middle of the village. Needless to say, they were notice too! The CO requested authorization to use artillery right away and it was fast coming too.

The VC MG trench in the middle of the village is to the upper left corner and my platoon is almost at the top center

A couple of turns passed with the two US platoons and the VC trench position exchanged fired before a second VC trench line with a VC platoon decided to open up on the US 1^st Platoon along the jungle edge that I was still moving through (very slowly, I might add.) Then the artillery came down on the villagers (luckily none were harmed or that would have been bad for us in Political points!) Artillery was eventually shifted on top of the trenches in the village. The US 1^st Platoon was really starting to lay down some serious fire on the VC platoon in the second trench line.

Amazing, all this time and hits, no one was killed. It was one of the most bloodless war games I have ever seen! The VC was either not getting hit or only suffering a little shock. Finally, the VC platoon in the 2^nd trench suffered enough shock that they finally broke out of the trench to run away. I was joking that they finally broke and fled because they knew my platoon would be on top of them soon…maybe in few days at the rate they were moving. Of course everyone else was joking that this would be one roll that my platoon would finally move fast enough to seized the glory of claiming to have routed the VC platoon. Wouldn’t you have known it, I did almost maxed out my movement roll, which got me to the jungle edge (finally) and to get one die of firepower shot off into the fleeing VC platoon! So, yes, my Platoon Leader wrote in the official AAR that he routed the VC platoon.

2nd Platoon sneaking up on the entrenched VC's

2nd Platoon "routing" the VC out of their trenches

By this point, I was forgetting period tactics and was more interested in getting prisoners to meet one of our Military objectives. So, while I was waiting for one of my cards come up again, I was seriously debating my actions next. I figured the VC had a company or only two platoons on board (note: I have not read the CDS scenario book yet, so I am making this estimation on what would be logical for this area of operations). I knew we had this one platoon beaten and on the run, but they could escape under a “Di Di Mau” card if they got out of line of sight from me, plus I knew part of a weapons platoon was under an artillery barrage in the center of town. I was fairly certain that there was another VC platoon on the opposite end of the village (note: after the game, the VC player confirmed that I was correct), so that left one platoon that I was not sure where it was located. I figured that was more to the center of the village and directly opposite of 3^rd Platoon. I was convincing myself to do something that crazy and that was to launch a platoon assault across the opening and mix it with broken VC platoon to try to cripple it more and possibly capture some prisoners, instead of safely firing across the opening with full firepower and possibly only causing shock and driving them into the jungle, out of my line of sight, and possibly losing them for good. My other option was to have my Weapons Squad occupy the abandon VC trenches and place them on over watch and had 3^rd & 2^nd squads fire full effect at the VC platoon and had 1^st Squad charge across the opening to the jungle edge to keep an eye on the broken platoon if they fled backwards into the jungle. I finally decided on a platoon assault as I did not want to have only a single squad crossing the opening. Even when my card came up, I opening admitted that I believed it not to be a good idea, but I just couldn’t bring myself to possibly allow this broken VC platoon to get away.

So, I charged across…and the third VC platoon opened up just off to one side of the broken VC platoon. Luckily for me, it did not come up on a VC Blind card, otherwise it would have been an Ambush and the amount of damaged suffered would have been worst…there was over 30 dice of damage as it was. It was pretty bad. Weapons Squad suffered the worst with 5 killed out of 9 men and 3^rd Squad had 3 or 4 killed. The platoon as whole had a lot of shock damage and suppressed. Weapons Squad fell back into jungle and I left them there. For the next few turns, both my LT and Plt SGT, along with the Medic, worked to get the shock off my squads, while they hunkered down in the opening.

The effects of 30+ dice of damage

Once I was able to get 1^st Squad down to a manageable level of shock, my LT decided he was going to give it one more “go” now that the nearby 3^rd VC platoon was under artillery fire. He order the LAW to used on a VC bunker that was seen in the opposite jungle line…and it missed. Not to be deterred, my LT yells, “First Squad, follow me! I am bullet-proof!” (note: quite literary, the LT had to roll three different times to see if he was hit when some of his men were killed in platoon, all three times I rolled a 10 on a d10!) I overrun the bunker where both the VC commander and commissar were still hiding out and gunned them down (I really was trying to get prisoners, darn it) and shot up one the VC squads from the broken platoon. I suffered one kill to 1^st Squad. And the next card was “Critical Wounded”…Yea! Private Franklin might still live! It was beautiful drawing of cards next was my NCO to pop smoke for the Medevac, then the Medic card came up so I could move him up and stabilize Private Franklin until the Medevac arrived. That was pretty much when the game was called.

"First Squad, follow me! I am bullet-proof!"

Overrunning a VC bunker

Calling for a "Dust Off"

My platoon was the only one to suffer casualties among the US players. I believe all together, I lost 11 men and 1 critically wounded out of my 42. Yes, that is unacceptable, but I was also the most aggressive platoon and after the initial hit, I only suffered a couple of killed. By being aggressive, I forced a whole VC platoon to disperse and prevented the other VC platoon to carry off their dead. In the end, the US didn’t do so great on our Military Objectives with only meeting the secondary Military Objective of locating the cache of rice. But even with all of my casualties, the VC’s were not able to meet their secondary Military Objective which was to inflict a certain percentage of casualties on the US forces. Politically, the VC’s again did poorly, even with all of my casualties again! Yep, I the US won a minor Political victory too. So overall, this was a US win, a minor, insignificant one, but still a win.

At the end of the game, as I was voted the winner for the event’s prize of a 10 GBP gift reward for Too Fat Lardies products! Hoo-Ha!

MILLENNIUMCON 14 AAR Pt I - General Info & Force on Force: Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:29:00 +0000

While I am working in Texas, I got a weekend off where I was not able to go home, but fell on the same weekend as Millenniumcon in Austin, TX. As I was about a 2 hour drive away, I went up there for one day. While I was there, I was able to get into two games (Force on Force Africa & Charlie Don’t Surf), which is a lot for me lately. What I am going to do is break this entry into three different parts: a review of the convention as a whole; a review of one game; and finally a review of the other game.

The Convention

All in all, it is not a bad little gaming convention. It is not a huge national gaming convention like GenCon or Origins, but a nice size for a regional convention which I quite honestly prefer over the large national cons due to the smaller crowds and lack of big ego and openly public mudslinging/poo-pooing that taints the HMGS-East conventions (I have been both a HMGS-E Cold War & Fall-In cons and can easily say that the smaller regional cons blow both of them away pretty much in all aspects.)

It was held a nice looking hotel that had a small convention building attached to it. There was a bar/restaurant there, but I did not eat there. The only thing that I would like to have seen was some more places to eat within walking distance. The gaming areas were nice and located in several rooms with the dealers located in the largest room along the gaming. While there were not a huge number of dealers, there were more than some other regional cons that I have been to. They had a flea market set up for Sunday morning only, which I was not able to attend, so I can’t comment on the number of sellers then. There were some nice looking games tables and some pretty figures. I didn’t get many pictures of any of this due to me being more interested in playing in games and the fact that I forgot my camera, so I had to use my camera phone which does not take the best of pictures.

The Convention Hall with Dealer's Area

One of the nicest look table boards

Force on Force: Africa

OK, this actually my second game for the day, but I am going to talk about it now. The guy running the game is one of the authors of the upcoming Force on Force: Africa supplement book. We talked a little bit about various books and information on the post-WWII African wars. I am not going to claim that I am expert on African conflicts, but years ago I was in hot and heavy on researching the Congo conflicts, Rhodesia, South Africa, plus Liberia & the Ivory Coast long before those last two conflicts where of any real interested over here in the US. I actually was able to start reading French, even though I never had been properly taught, because I was reading French magazines/news articles and was able to figure out enough by just knowing what the articles were about.) I always found the conflicts very interesting and brutal…humanity at its worst. Anyway, I have my opinions on this setting with these rules, but I will hold off expressing them depending on how the final book looks…especially the section on the Belgian Para-Commandos for the Congo.

As for the game, it was called “Bronze Cross of Rhodesia: Operation Snoopy”. In the scenario, platoon of Rhodesian Light Infantry has to ambush a Mozambique army armored column of a platoon of infantry riding in BTR-40’s and a T-55 tank. The RLI was to hit hard, stop the column and escape from the board. The Mozambique army was to exit their armor off the board and try to keep the RLI from escaping the board for at least 10 (or something like that) turns. The game went badly for the RLI. Mostly it was due to really bad dice rolls, I felt sorry for the one RLI player whose dice rolls were as bad as someone I know back home! (You know who you are!) He shot my BTR-40 several times with an RPG and only slightly damaged it once, still allowing me to escape off the board with it. He also rolled a lot of “1’s” for his reactions and was getting hammered with bad luck cards. But, I also believe that the RLI players lost the objective of their mission and got too tunnel visioned with shooting up Mozambique troops that they didn’t try to break contact and run away to set up another ambush site. Of course, they couldn’t do that after a while as too many of their men were getting hit and were rolled as serious wounded. In the end, the Mozambique army was bloodied with probably 50% wounded or dead infantry and a knocked out T-55 blocking the only vehicle ford at the stream. But every RLI was killed as the remaining Mozambique troops shot all of the wounded before turn 10.
In review of the game, it was way too bloody and both the Mozambique and RLI where too much like supermen for morale as they were being massacred and didn’t run. At one point, half of my squad of Mozambique troops jumped out of a moving BTR-40 because they failed a morale roll from small arms fire…I have a problem with that. If it was from a RPG hit or the BTR was still, I could see them jumping out. Instead, I believe that they would have hidden gone “to ground” inside the BTR.

Pushing on without my vehicle-leaping infantry

Upcoming blog entries!

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:38:00 +0000

Well, I will hopefully have some time to type up a couple of AAR's for a few games that I got in lately soon. I got to go to MILLENNIUMCON 14, in the Austin, TX, area back in the middle of November and got into two games. I just never got round to typing anything up due to work and not being in the best of moods. This Sunday, I will be trying out a game of "I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! III", as we will be giving the new rules a stab and seeing how things go. I probably will not get that AAR up for another week or two after Sunday.
So, what has been going on in my life? Well, I have been setting everything in my personal life aside for work...especially the current project that I am working on. It is draining my time, energy, and mojo to really carry on. I have tried to work on my 15mm ACW figures, but with the exception of working all day on Thanksgiving on them, I have done nothing to accomplish anything miniature wise. I really only find time to read and have finished off several books since my last on-line book review. I really don't even have time to type up those any more! I finished several books on the Battle of Wilson's Creek, 1861, and currently reading books on the Falkland's War, 1982.

I have found many good stuff to add to my ever growing 20mm "Anarchy in the UK" project and the Falklands, but just don't have to time to put everything together. I really need to push more to do this and get it going.

Also, I am really trying to suppress my inner "bomb thrower" personality (you guys that know me, know exactly what I mean!), but I am finding it harder and harder as I find some modern looking rioters in 28mm to lead into fighting against "The Man." I might start looking at picking up on some riot games in the future (darn that Offensive Miniatures for making their miniatures too beautiful! Link) I can't afford to get into another project!

Anyways, I am going to start working on my MILLENNIUMCON 14 AAR blog entry. Hopefully, I will get it done sometime this weekend.

Cheers...and crush the Establishment (stupid rioters miniatures...must have them.)

Which Rifle is better? The AK-47, the AR-15, or the Mosin-Nagant

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:26:00 +0000

I saw this joke on some forum or another a while back and forgotten about it until I recently found my copy of it again. I thought I will post it here as I found it funny and sadly, pretty true. I shot an AK-47 once many years ago and never gotten the urge to join the “Cult of the AK.” I handled and shot the M16A1 (a variant of the AR-15) for 15 years in the Guard and I liked it, but again never got into the “Stoner Cult.” But now, I am a proud owner of a Mosin-Nagant rifle. So I really could relate to a lot of items listed below. I hope this brings a laugh or two.

AK-47

AR-15

Mosin-Nagant

Cost

AK-47: You paid $330 for your rifle.
AR-15: You paid $900 for your rifle.
Mosin-Nagant: You paid $49.95…and that includes the cleaning kit, 100 rounds of ammunition, the cost of the ticket to the gun show, and the hot dog & soda that you bought while you were there!

History of the Rifles

AK-47: Has been around for 50 years.
AR-15: Has been around for 40 years.
Mosin-Nagant: Has been around for 100 years and counting.

AK-47: Your rifle has been used by any two-bit nation's most illiterate conscripts to fight elite forces worldwide.
AR-15: Your rifle has been used by elite forces worldwide to fight two-bit nations' most illiterate conscripts.
Mosin-Nagant: Your rifle has fought against itself - and won every time.

AK-47: Your rifle has won some revolutions.
AR-15: Your rifle drove Saddam out of Kuwait.
Mosin-Nagant: Your rifle conquered Hitler, Russia, half of Europe, parts of Asia, and forced the United States into a stalemate on the 38^th Parallel

Maintenance & Cleaning

AK-47: Any fool can be taught to field strip it.
AR-15: Anyone with an IQ over 160 can be taught to field strip it.
Mosin-Nagant: What's field stripping?

AK-47: It works even though you have never cleaned it.
AR-15: You have to buy a $9 per ounce special non-detergent synthetic Teflon infused oil for cleaning.
Mosin-Nagant: It was last cleaned while in Berlin in 1945.

AK-47: You can repair your rifle with a big hammer and a swift kick.
AR-15: You can repair your rifle by taking it to a certified gunsmith, if it's under warranty!
Mosin-Nagant: If your rifle breaks, you pick up another one cheap.

Accuracy & Damage

AK-47: You are able to hit the broad side of a barn from inside.
AR-15: You are able to hit the fly that landed on the side of a barn at 100 meters.
Mosin-Nagant: You can hit the barn from two miles away.

AK-47: Your sight adjustment goes to10, and you've never bothered moving it.
AR-15: Your sight adjustment is incremented in fractions of minutes in an angle.
Mosin-Nagant: Your sight adjustment goes to 2000 meters, and you've actually tried it.

AK-47: You can put a .30" hole through 12" of oak.
AR-15: You can put one hole in a paper target at 100 meters with 10 rounds.
Mosin-Nagant: You knock down everyone else's target with the shockwave of your bullet going down range.

Finishes & Functions

AK-47: Your rifle's finish is varnish and paint.
AR-15: Your rifle's finish is Teflon and high-tech polymers.
Mosin-Nagant: Your rifle's finish is low-grade shellac, cosmoline, and Olga's toe nail polish.

AK-47: Recoil is manageable, even fun.
AR-15: What's recoil?
Mosin-Nagant: Recoil is often used to fix shoulders dislocated by the previous shot.

AK-47: Your safety can be heard from 300 meters away.
AR-15: You can silently flip off the safety with your finger on the trigger.
Mosin-Nagant: What's a safety?

Accessories

AK-47: You can accessorize you rifle with a new muzzle brake or a nice stock set.
AR-15: Your rifle's accessories are eight times more valuable than your rifle.
Mosin-Nagant: Your rifle's accessory is a small tin can with a funny lid, but it has been buried under an apartment building somewhere in Budapest back in '45.

AK-47: Your rifle comes with a cheap nylon sling.
AR-15: Your rifle has a 9-point stealth tactical suspension system.
Mosin-Nagant: Your rifle has a dog collar.

AK-47: Cheap magazines are fun to buy.
AR-15: Cheap magazines melt.
Mosin-Nagant: What's a magazine?

Ammunition & Bayonet

AK-47: It's easier to buy a new rifle when you want to change cartridge sizes.
AR-15: You can change cartridge sizes with the push of a couple of pins and a new upper assembly.
Mosin-Nagant: You believe no real man would dare risk the ridicule of his friends by suggesting there is anything but 7.62x54 R.

AK-47: You buy cheap ammo by the case.
AR-15: You lovingly reload precision crafted rounds one by one.
Mosin-Nagant: Your ammo was dug out of a farmer's field in the Ukraine and it works just fine.

AK-47: When out of ammo, your rifle will nominally pass as a club.
AR-15: When out of ammo, your rifle makes a great waffle ball bat.
Mosin-Nagant: When out of ammo, your rifle makes a supreme war club, pike, boat oar, tent pole, or firewood.

AK-47: Your bayonet makes a good wire cutter.
AR-15: Your bayonet is actually a pretty good steak knife.
Mosin-Nagant: Your bayonet is longer than your leg.

AK-47: You can intimidate your foe with the bayonet mounted.
AR-15: Your foes laugh when you mount your bayonet.
Mosin-Nagant: You can bayonet your foe on the other side of the stream without leaving the comfort of your hole.

Recognizing what kind of rifle owner you are

AK-47: You consider it a badge of honor when you get your hand guards to burst into flames.
AR-15: You consider it a badge of honor when you shoot a sub-MOA 5 shot group.
Mosin-Nagant: You consider it a badge of honor when you cycle 5 rounds without the aid of a 2”x4”.

AK-47: After a long day the range, you relax by watching Red Dawn.
AR-15: After a long day at the range, you relax by watching Black Hawk Down.
Mosin-Nagant: After a long day at the range, you relax by visiting the chiropractor.

AK-47: After cleaning your rifle you have a strong urge for a stiff shot of vodka.
AR-15: After cleaning your rifle you have a strong urge for hot dogs and apple pie.
Mosin-Nagant: After cleaning your rifle you have a strong urge for a shish kabob.

AK-47: Late at night you sometimes have to fight the urge to hold your rifle over your head and shout "Wolverines!"
AR-15: Late at night you sometimes have to fight the urge to clear your house, slicing the pie from room to room.
Mosin-Nagant: Late at night, you sometimes have to fight the urge to dig a fighting trench to sleep in.

AK-47: Your wife tolerates your autographed framed picture of Mikhail Kalashnikov.
AR-15: Your wife tolerates your autographed framed picture of Eugene Stoner.
Mosin-Nagant: Are there even photographs of Sergi Ivanovich Mosin and Leon Nagant?

The Empty Chair - Bill Nardin - RIP

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:41:00 +0000

Today, I have been informed that a follow gamer from St. Louis, MO, that I have known for twenty years has passed away on 11/21/11, after being shot in the chest in a case of ‘road rage’ while traveling through Texas with his wife. I will not comment about the incident as I only know what was published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch news.

Bill was a master painter and kit-basher when it came to miniatures. I never ceased to be amazed at some of his work, especially his 1/285th scale Bosnian city that was built as a table top exercise device for the USMC Reserves in several events (which, I also had a fun time being a part of that training.) I know that he will be sorely missed within the St. Louis and other miniature gaming circle.

Bill’s website

http://commandoperationscenter.com/

Below is a poem that has periodically shown up in a RPG comic, “The Knights of the Diner Table,” which is a eulogy for a lost gamer. I don’t believe anyone has ever been given credit for writing it, so I don’t know who the author is to give credit. While it is for a role-player, I think it also speaks true for all gamers.

The Empty Chair

Eulogy for a Gamer

There is an empty chair,

at the table this day.

A hallowed place where,

a friend once played.

The roll of his dice,

my ears long to hear.

Or perhaps it would suffice,

if he should suddenly appear.

With character sheet in hand,

and a bag of Cheeze-doodles to share.

All his friends would stand,

as he sat in the empty chair.

I hear his voice a-callin’,

and it ties my heart in a knot.

For he cries, “Though a comrade has fallen,

You must play for those who cannot.”

We conquered worlds on the run,

he and I in the name of fun.

And as others may come and go,

I make both both friend and foe.

But what I long for most,

is our past now long a ghost.

11/11/11

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:40:00 +0000

I am not going to write about why I am posting these videos.

If you don't understand, I can't explain.

1916 - Motörhead

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda- The Pogues

Green Fields of France - Dropkick Murphys

A Quick History and Safety Tips For Guy Fawkes Day

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:07:00 +0000

Horrible Histories - Fawkes'13

Horrible Histories - Bonfire Safety Tips with Guy Fawkes

"Remember, remember the Fifth of November"

noreply@blogger.com (Sapper Joe) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 03:56:00 +0000

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,

the Gunpowder Treason and Plot.

I know of no reason

why the Gunpowder Treason

should ever be forgot...