German Heer Pt.11- More MG42s

A German army needs plenty of MG42s. I read that in an wargaming article somewhere, and completely agree. As the war for Germany swung onto the defensive for the most part later on, the MG42 showed its true value as an area denial tool. In the Bocage country of Normandy whole fields could be blanketed and turned into killing zones. German army doctrine focused on an infantry squad supporting the LMG as its primary tool, rather than the LMG supporting the rest of the squad- and this made sense as the MG34/ 42 was a fine weapon that did its job superbly. So, on the tabletop, I wanted to have more of them!

Team 1

I already have an Artizan Design MMG team to support my reinforced platoon, but I have always liked the models produced by Empress Miniatures. I have a few things in my army by them- a Panzerschrek team and my HQ officers, but I'd always planned on including more.

I like this team a great deal. I like the mixture of uniforms they're wearing which means I can use them for my grenadier or volksgrenadier platoons. Paul Hicks' sculpting is always superb, too- I'd buy all of the Empress WW2 models if I could, but that would definitely break the bank... I like the team's poses- hunkered down and watchful. Their low profile does have an impact on the table where Bolt Action's Real Line of Sight rule can make them that little bit harder to spot if placed well amongst cover.

Team 2

This team allowed me to add a bit of variation from the usual '3 men in a firing position' MMG team that you always get. If you play WW2 Americans, you can have a similar mixture of 'firing' and 'deploying' MMG teams as the USA can field multiple teams per platoon. I wanted something similar here. Fortunately, Empress Miniatures supplied another excellent set of models to help me do that.

Interestingly, or annoyingly, the deploying MMG team comprised of only 2 men- the gunner carrying the MG42 and his assistant in the greatcoat lugging the tripod. I included an ammo carrier from the LMG/ 2-man MG42 pack to make up the third man, and his pose complements the other two guys nicely.

I mount this team on a 3-man sabot base on the table, mainly to identify them as a fixed weapon team rather than just 'three men in a small group'. I don't like mounting teams on a single 50mm or 60mm round base, as I find that I can't get them into certain bits of scenery- and teams really want to get into cover where they can! Similar to my Soviet 'deploying' MMG team, the yellow line on the base represents where arc of fire is measured from as there is no barrel to work with. I have put one beside each of the three positions on this base so that the gunner can be placed in any of them depending on the particular scenery that the team is placed within.

German Heer Pt.10- Volksgrenadiers 2

Squad 2

Here's the second squad of Volksgrenadiers that I have completed. I've got 4 built and primed in total, but other projects keep muscling their way to the front of the 'to-do' list, so a large platoon of these guys keeps getting put back. As it is, I now have two squads and a HQ to represent the minimum required. I'm getting there slowly. Let's see how long squad 3 takes to appear?!

As with the first squad, I didn't just want to build whole 10-man blocks of figures from the Warlord Winter Germans plastics. I also wanted to add grenadiers to each squad to represent the mismatch in equipment that individuals could be supplied with by the war's end. Not everyone got a greatcoat or a StG44, and I swapped heads and equipment around between the two sets to blur the lines between them.  I also didn't want to build min/max squads armed to the teeth with assault rifles- I would have liked to have left it at the basic 5 StGs, but had to include 6 per squad solely down to practicalities of what was on the sprues, how many grenadiers I already had built and what I could stretch the box's content to represent. Surprisingly, there aren't that many rifles on the Winter German sprue, which is quite strange- but plenty of MP40s and StG44s, so I worked with what I had and compromised slightly.

Volksgrenadiers aren't the best, but I like the idea of their variable troop quality- even moreso than other Green troops. They can be quite swingy, and die easily when they are Inexperienced, but I enjoy it when they surprise both me and my opponent and bump up to Regular, or even Veteran!

British Airborne Pt.13- Engineers

 Airborne Royal Engineers

Here is the small squad of engineers that I have planned to include with my British paras for a good while now. Their transport, an airlifted universal carrier, has been waiting for them for quite some time, but I am happy that both have seen action on the tabletop for the first time together already here .

The models come from the metal British Paratrooper Section box from Warlord. I used some of the other models to flesh out my  Intelligence Officer's team but kept these five aside to make engineers. My aim is to use them to remove obstacles- barbed wire and minefields- on the table, so chose the grenade throwers to represent this tenuously. A LMG team and SMG armed NCO complete the squad. In some games, I will swap out the LMG team and add the flamethrower team I have also painted- they cost the same points and allow for bunker/ strongpoint assaults also.

I like how these guys came out. Overall, I feel these are some of the best British airborne I've painted. Brilliant- I'm nearing the end of the army and am finally getting the hang of it!

Senior NCOs

I hadn't spotted the rules for Senior NCOs when they first appeared in print for Bolt Action in The Battle of France Campaign Book. They were included in the Company Commander chapter near the end of the book that covered larger actions and protracted campaigns. Cut forward to the release of the latest D-Day, US Sectors book, however, and Senior NCOs appear as an add-on rule in the appendices and made me revisit them (& the campaign rules) for a second look.

I like how in Chain of Command, a senior NCO is an independent command figure for some nations who works alongside the lieutenant/ platoon commander. He can have just as much influence as an officer to the men in his platoon/ company and possibly even more so! I'm reminded of the calm and steady presence of Colour Sergeant Bourne in the film Zulu, or the grizzled experience of Sergeant Barnes that compensated for the bumbling Lieutenant Wolff in Platoon.

So, Senior NCOs have made an appearance in Bolt Action, and although I welcome the addition, I'm not completely sold on the rules attached to them. Rather than an additional figure with leadership that can be present on the table, a SNCO is a free upgrade for an officer's '+1 man' which essentially acts as an extra 'life' for said officer. Your lieutenant/ captain/ major gets killed, the SNCO takes over, operating at the same leadership bonus as the original officer. Fine. 

Thematically, now a sniper has targeted your HQ officer, this does allow you to have another leader to step up and take charge. I like that the platoon sergeant can now go, 'Right, lads, follow me...' and keep things going, so with this in mind, I chose to upgrade some of my '+1 men' to represent a more experienced looking SNCO type character.

The German SNCO was a '+1 man' already, and looks suitably gnarly and battle-hardened. I've given these SNCOs yellow base edges to depict their leadership providing qualities, like other officers, albeit in a replacement capacity.

The Britsh Para SNCO was a spare figure from Artizan that came in a command figure blister pack. He looks perfect with bristling moustaches and fierce expression so I knew he was right for my paras.

The Soviet SNCO was originally an NCO for one of my Tank Hunter teams. A recent reshuffle of that army due to new additions freed him up to be promoted to platoon sergeant, which I think he manages to do quite nicely.

I've yet to play using SNCOs, but I don't expect their rules to alter gameplay dramatically. They don't bring anything new that needs to be incorporated, just amend an existing rule.  Let's see how they perform in the near future?! 

Terrain- Building 8- Boulangerie

Boulangerie

This is the second building that I have completed from a set produced by a company called Game Cult on eBay. The first one I finished was my church, and these two were the stand-out kits in a multi-kit set, and as a result, are the ones I've completed first. 

I like the multiple levels of the roofs and the archway on this kit. It made the building a little bit different to the boxy nature of quite a few MDF kits you can buy, and it got my imagination racing as to the possibilities I could do with the kit. As always, I wanted to extend the footprint of the building and included a yard. I've made a few of these now and am reasonably confident now. I also wanted to cover the kit in brick paper to tie it in with a set of terraced houses from TT Combat that I had just completed and thought worked really well. (I'll post the terraces soon, but wanted to show this building first because I think it's really cool...)

An interesting feature of Game Cult MDF kits is that the building is not split into floors that lift off individually, rather the back wall of the kit slides up and out on guide runners once the roofs are removed. You can see these in the pics below. It's not as awkward as I first thought it might be, and it also allowed me to attach a drainpipe to the back wall that didn't need sectioning to fit to individual storeys of a more conventional kit.

The exterior stairway is actually the one included in the kit to put inside the building. I chose not to use it that way because I don't want extra clutter inside when I place troops. Instead, I thought about using it as an external metal stair leading to the upper floor. The door at the top is one I fashioned from cardboard bits and bobs, which covered a nice blank space in the wall- perfect for a new feature. 

The yard is surrounded by foamboard walls, just like the ones I've made for my other buildings, capped with cardboard tiles. The paving stones in the yard are leftover sheets from when I paved the yard of my hotel- it took a bit of jiggery-pokery to make what I had left fit the dimensions, but I covered any joins with moss and 'weathering'.

The gate into the yard is made from coffee stirrers, like all of my gates, with card and wire bits to make hinges and handles. After looking at all the rounded ends I'd snipped off to make it, I thought I'd have a go at shaped ridge tiles across the roofs. It was a bit fiddly to attach them, but I'm happy with how they came out- they definitely add a little extra to the building.

The archways have stones over the top to break up all of the red brick and gives them a bit of definition, and the chimney top is a couple of Lego pieces, as per... 

Decorations include posters and shop signs lifted from the collections I've downloaded online, a wall-mounted lamp by the back gate from the Rubicon street furniture set and a clock mounted on the front of the building that I free-handed onto an oval MDF piece that pushed out of another kit and was lying around in the 'bits and pieces' tub for just such an occasion.

I'm really pleased with how this came out. I plan to have a cobbled road piece connecting to the back of the arch, so the side gate opens onto the roadway. Traffic can pass through the arch and connect onto the road in front of the Boulangerie, making it a bit more interesting than just a normal T junction. With buildings either side, this will make for some interesting set-ups, I hope...

Russians Pt.11- Rota Razvedki Mounted Reconnaissance Squad

Here is the squad that will accompany my M3 White Scout car onto the table. Constructed from a mixture of troopers pulled from several different places, I was able to build this squad from quite a few already painted figures that needed only a few completing to finish off the squad.

All of the male SMG soldiers are troopers I have swapped out of my Tank Hunter teams to make way for Bad Squiddo's female soldier additions, which made up most of the squad for me, right there! The rifle-armed trooper with the beard was included in my LMG Squad, but I swapped him out to make my banner bearer a permanent addition to that squad. The NCO is an officer that came with the original Red Army box from Warlord (as did all of the other figures, bar one) and looked suitably gnarly and experienced to represent a veteran leader. The final member of the squad is a Bad Squiddo female trooper from their recent Kickstarter project. She's actually a tank rider, but I've transferred her into the recon troops. As one of the two rifle armed troopers, she can elect to stay in the scout car an 'man' one of the MMGs as per the Mounted Recon rule found in Fortress Budapest. Or, they can all debus and fight normally.

AAR 1- British Paras vs Heer

After Action Report 1

Here are just a few pics from a Bolt Action game from this weekend. I had a bit of time spare & was looking forward to putting a few new pieces out on the table. As a result, I didn't take many pics during the game, but snapped a few when I remembered...

Since completing most of my British paras during Lockdown, I've had little chance to field them, so this was a treat. I also got to use my watertower, high walls, train tracks & a new terraced house row for the first time (blog entries for those soon...)

The British were attempting to push into the outskirts of town, but the Germans held good positions in the hotel and its surrounds. The paras had to resort to a dash up the left flank along the railway tracks. Here, some engineers in their Universal Carrier get the jump on a grenadier squad holding the junction.

Viewed from the British table edge, some of the paras support units go about their work. The 3" mortar was quite ineffective for the most part, but dropped a perfect smoke round right in front of the hotel on turn 3. It managed to stay for the remainder of the game & screened the advance on, & eventual storming, of the ground floor by a para section.

The sniper on the top of the watertower was more deadly, taking out a couple of squad leaders and an LMG team, earning his keep sufficiently.

In the background you can see my Tetrarch tank burning. I forgot that panzerfaust troops can split their fire from the rest of their unit, so got one right in the face whilst the engineers were facing off against the rest of squad. Damn...

Here we have an Aufklarungs/ Recon team debussing from their halftrack to deal with a para officer. Fire from several directions kept the pins high on this team, but they killed the officer's radio operator, only for the plucky first Lieutenant to fend them off from inside the orchard with some inspired shooting from his Sten gun.

(Apologies for the ad hoc smoke in the background. Never had one land before & had no templates to represent them when it did! Raided the bathroom cabinet & the misses' cotton wool products so warfare could continue...)

A shot here of the back of the terraces & the allotment behind. The chickens seem unconcerned by the sounds of battle over the way. Shows the reverse of the houses & my experimentation with brick paper quite nicely though.