Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

No, this is nothing to do with Basil Brush (Brits only I suspect), or the collected works of the eminent war poet Private Baldrick and not even a "How To" but more of a "How I".

After their use attracted comments in the recent CoC game, I decided to go about making my own barrage/explosion markers. There are any number of useful tutorials on the web (I know because I looked them up), but they all use slightly differing approaches so I cherry-picked and added a bit and this is what I came up with.


All you'll ever need.....

After gathering my materials I made note of the following:

1) Don't use the best Milliput.

2) Don't worry about the colour of the clump foliage

3) Don't use good superglue (my stuff was the 5 for £1 that you can get from Super Savers etc.)

 

 

First step was to make some rough armatures by pushing bamboo skewer into the centre and varying lengths of cocktail stick into the sides of the Milliput at differing angles.

Next is the most laborious part. After the first couple I settled on a technique of skewering small clumps of clump foliage and building up rings. I deliberately left up to 5mm of the cocktail sticks at the ends as I had a plan.

Next I sprayed them thoroughly with Halfords matt black primer. When they'd dried out I dry brushed first a mid-grey tone in strokes from the top down stopping short of the lowest parts and followed with a lighter grey, again stopping even higher up.

After raiding my son's 40K paints I picked one of the thick pigment "Base" colours and wet brushed quite vigorously into the base areas of each plume and painted the ends of the cocktail sticks.

I repeated the same process with a lighter red in sparser amounts and further up the tips again.

Then I repeated the first red stage with a "Base" yellow. All the time trying where possible to keep the brush strokes vertical up the plumes.

And again with a lighter yellow.

Finally the tips of the cocktail sticks were whitened. I wanted to represent shards of white hot metal/earth or whatever projecting out of the smoke. I'd decided if the idea didn't work, I'd just go back and foliage up to the ends (but I actually think it looks OK!) 

Very soon I'd finished all ten (the tenth was out of shot for the next picture)

Very happy with the final result, I'll be more than happy to use them for vehicle explosions as well as just artillery blasts.

After putting off making them for so long, I'm likely to add a few more in the near future. Next time I'll maybe try attaching the foliage before inserting the sticks into the Milliput to see if that makes thing easier.



Wyvern Wargamers Big CoC with Big Rich 27-09-14 (part 3)

......of a trilogy :^D

Although I had unintentionally ended my own mortar barrage in the middle of that run of seven phases, the devastating effect it had already had on Rich's position was beginning to weigh heavily on the Paras. Repeated activations had left his 2" mortar team dead, his section next to the gun routed due to shock and the gun abandoned by it's remaining crew who were running for the board edge.

Heavy and accurate mortar fire devastated the paras on the hill.

Those accumulated losses had pushed Rich's FM to a perilous FOUR with his loss of a command dice also impacting upon Paul's FM too. I had luckily managed to reacquire the mortar support first time.

Rich re-crewed the rallied gun and added his remaining infantry sections in the as yet un-deployed trenches on the front of the hill. Needless to say, at his first opportunity he ended the barrage again by surrendering another CoC dice. I wouldn't manage to get it back for the rest of the game, but with it having left his sections encumbered with shock and cowering in the bottom of their slit trenches, it would be a blow from which he would struggle to recover. With his FM now at only TWO(!) he'd lost another command dice and the effect had again spilled over to reduce Paul's to five.

Meanwhile, back on the farm, Paul had introduced his remaining infantry sections and senior leader, deploying at nine inches within the garden from their jump off point hidden in the orchard (which I'd forgotten about). Obviously with the scent of blood in his nostrils, he wasted no time in assaulting my remaining weak force who were licking their own wounds in the house. The result was a bloody affair. The ground left littered with dead as the Germans were wiped out to a man and the paras taking another twelve casualties in the process.

Paul's sections advance to a VERY bloody second close quarters affair at the farmhouse.

Now it was my turn to teeter as my FM had fallen to only five also. Luckily for us, a second random event had seen Bob's FM recover to seven as his grateful troops downed bottle after bottle of Chateau Neuf de Pape they'd discovered in the factory cellar. How Rich howled! To think that their task had just been made harder by the GERMANS getting the booze! :^D

With the remaining Panzer IV's pumping HE round after HE round unchecked into the house and trenches on the hill, it was only a matter of time until Rich's FM dropped again. This time it was to demonstrate the catastrophic effect when supporting troops' morale cascades taking down each other in turn. First Rich lost another command dice, the resulting effect was to reduce Paul's by one, which in turn took that last remaining point from Rich.

In conclusion, although we had won in game terms we would have found it impossible to hold the ground as my foolhardy infantry assault had left us with insufficient forces to consolidate the gains.

In reality, this particular German attack was ended when concentrated defensive artillery barrages from Third Infantry Division west of the Orne and the guns of HMS Arethusa in The Channel broke up the assaulting force, leaving Panzer IV's knocked out as close as just THIRTY YARDS in front of the paras positions! According to both Werner Kortenhaus (in his book Combat History of 21st Panzer Division) and Hans von Luck (in his book Panzer Commander) it was this defeat that so heavily demoralised the officer cadre of the division and bought about wide belief that the war was indeed lost.


To the victors the spoils! SIEG IST UNSER!

A great game! My thanks to Rich for making the trip up to Borsetshire and to Bob & Paul for making it happen in true Lardy spirit. Let's hope we get to do this again soon........

Wyvern Wargamers Big CoC with Big Rich 27-09-14 (Part 2)

So with the scene set, briefings given and battle plans drawn up, we rolled for force moral. Big Rich disastrously (for him) rolled a '1' (FM8), while Paul rolled '6' (FM11). That made Paul overall commander for the Brits and although it would be his dice dictating turn ends etc. he slyly passed over the patrol phase to Rich!

Although we both ended up with FM of 9 I was overall commander for the Germans by default as Bob had chosen to command the armour.

German view before the patrol phase. Bob and myself had already decided that priority must be given to denying the Brits a jump-off point in either of the mid-table wooded areas. After that, as our armour was deploying from the road entry points, we'd be happy jumping off from the hedge line and the factory if we could claim it.

The scenario we were playing was number three, a straight forward attack-defence and unfortunately I rolled a paltry two patrol marker moves before the Paras got to attempt to pen us in. In the end neither Rich or I attempted to claim the woods between the wheat fields and all our markers became locked down in the open ground or near the road. I'll admit I lost concentration at one point which could have proven costly, but in the end Bob and I were happy with our lot.

"Lock Down". Neither side had the central woods, while we'd achieved the factory as our furthest point forward.

We'd decided to pile on early and Bob's panzers quickly approached the hedge line.

Rich and Paul (eventually - the Pre-game barrage caused delays) deployed snipers to pick at our infantry escort. Although Rich forgetting they hit on three up did mean they weren't very successful for a number of turns :^D

German infantry appear round their armour and adapt overwatch to catch those snipers out. Equally unsuccessful, they failed every attempt at spotting!

The German attack was proceeding nicely, with the lead infantry and armour elements reaching the wooded area ahead of the factory on our right flank. Then things began to unravel. The Allies were racking up inordinate amounts of '5's and collecting CoC dice like they were going out of fashion. They ended the turn - and thereby our Pre-game barrage, with it having had little effect. There was little point in our FOO deploying when they had the ability to end any other barrage immediately.    ....Then disaster struck!

Rich's TFL dice (highly recommended purchase) rolled this! All those '6's bought about the first random event of the day. A stray mortar barrage would randomly hit the battlefield for one phase.
 

Would you believe it? Our lead units copped for the lot! Four (total) dead and shock to both infantry sections really put a crimp on things. Slowing us down and reducing our threat.

The random barrage ceased and the smoke cleared, allowing the Germans Mark IV's on the road to advance and take up positions to support an infantry attack on the farm house ahead. Then all Hell broke loose as Rich and Paul decided the time was ripe for cashing in some more of their hoarded CoC dice.

Rich's dug in A/T Gun and an infantry squad take up position on the hill front. 

Paul ambushed a PIAT from the out house widow at the farm, damaging the engine of one tank, while Rich, having deployed a Six Pound A/T Gun in a pit on the slope cashed in TWO CoC dice as interrupts to take out his target. Bob's FM took a plunge, dropping three points to just six.


Panzer 422 goes up in smoke after two hits from the 6Lb A/T Gun

Our intention to attack the farm house on our right flank to attain a base of fire near to the hill was hampered as Paul took advantage of our delay to deploy a section into the back garden. Then Lady Luck swung the balance back in The Fatherland's favour. I began a run of SEVEN consecutive phases (including a turn ending three sixes). Taking advantage I quickly rallied off the shock from the panzer grenadiers and moved both depleted sections to assault Paul's position before he could reinforce further. Not knowing how long I could push my luck, I chose to get stuck in without pinning him first. The result was a Pyrrhic victory. I took more casualties but managed to wipe out Paul's section entirely, holding the ground with two VERY poorly looking sections by default. I'd also been forced to cash in a CoC dice to avoid the morale test for my senior leader dying in the assault! Although I'd bought down Paul's FM to seven, my own had dropped to join Bob on a precarious six.

During this run I took advantage of the sudden lack of Allied CoC dice putting our FOO and mortar battery into action, calling down immediate fire on Rich's Paras and gun on the hill from the factory windows. Direct hit!

Stay tuned tomorrow for episode three! (if it's good enough for Peter Jackson) ;^)

Wyvern Wargamers Big CoC with Big Rich 27-09-14 (part 1)

 

 

On Saturday we at Wyvern Wargamers held one of our all-day gaming events and were lucky enough to have guest visitors Paul from Kallistra & Big Rich Clarke from TFL among the club members gaming for the day. Paul was involved in a very large WW1 game using rules and 10mm figures from the Kallistra ranges while Rich took part in my four player CoC scenario based in Normandy with Paul, Maximum Bob and myself.

 

Our game would represent the right of the two blue arrows.

I'd chosen to depict part of the attack by 21st Panzer Division in the evening of 9th June (D-Day +3) when elements of 125 Pz. Gren. Batt. supported by MkIV tanks of 4 Kompanie 22 Pz. Batt. were ordered to attack from Escoville via Hérouvillette and on to Ranville from where they would hold ground with a commanding view of the bridgehead at Bénouville.

 

Ze Germans! Maximum Bob took control of the Panzer IV platoon while I (mis)handled a platoon of panzer grenadiers. This view towards the south, is from the raised ground at the British end of the table. Escoville would be in the cupboard over Bob's right shoulder, while Hérouvillette village would be about 6 feet behind the camera. 

The Brits (two platoons of The II/Ox. & Bucks Light Infantry) would be played by Big Rich and Paul. With Rich taking charge of the 6 pounder and ALL of the entrenchments as it turned out!

Orders of battle

The German attack would be preceded by a preparatory barrage (as in real life) and would be across well observed open ground with the tanks sometimes providing the only cover for the advancing panzer grenadiers. We'd be relying on those guns from Sturmgeschutz Abteilung 200 and the mortar battery to keep Tommie's heads down!

 

After a quick historical background to set the scene and 10 minutes for each side to discuss a battle-plan, we were ready for the off at about 10.15am.......... 



A Life in Ruins?

 

 As previously mentioned, I had been inspired by Derek Hodge's work here http://dereksweetoys.com/2014/07/even-more-ruins/ and had decided that as lovely as my Normandy scenery was looking it all looked a little too 'nice'. While Normandy is indeed very beautiful (a lot like Cornwall but with more interesting stuff to see), it didn't look quite as quaint once the war-waging nations of WW2 had thrown frankly enormous quantities of munitions at it for 3-4 months. What I set out to depict was something more akin to the look of Villers Bocage AFTER shots.

I gathered together all of the suitable ruins I'd had secreted away in the garage for over 5 years

My little hoard was going to be enough to enable me to put out a decent little ruined hamlet at least. There would be a total of 9 houses and a church. Pictured above are six multi-based houses from http://www.fieldworks.org.uk/ (which honestly could have been left as-is but I was aiming for an overall more unifying look), a single storey shell which came with a Jagdpanther kit by Battlefront & the small church donated by my mate Garry (manufacturer unknown). Added to these would be a pair of buildings from Tiger Terrain (I've heard a whisper that these may be making a return with a proper website soon!)

All the buildings were washed in soapy water then got a customary basecoat with Halfords Grey Primer.

I had a rummage in my bits box and turned up some old Missing Link craters and varying pieces of wall left over from when I built the in-tact versions. I scrubbed the grass scatter off the craters and cut fibre board bases for the varying groups of ruins.

Two of the now singly based Field Works buildings with Tiger ruined walls & ML craters.

Same combination. This time with a Tiger crater and the start of some home-made rubble .

Battlefront & FW buildings with Tiger walls and crater

FW buildings (from the multi-bases) Tiger walls & ML craters.

The two Tiger buildings with Landmark Low Walls & ML crater

I magnetised the roofs of these two building to prevent them wandering during games. I took the Dremel to the wall and spayed the inside of the downstairs of both buildings black before attaching them to their base. All of the items were fixed down with NO More Nails. The rubble was made by using Rich Clarke's mix of tile grout and PVA to make a fairly thick paste. Piling that around the buildings and craters before pushing in large pieces of Gale Force Nine rubble, some granulated drain pipe (available from Sgt.'s Mess) then varying grades of Talus (a form of lightweight railway ballast apparently) and finally sprinkling a layer of fine sand to marry it all together.

 

 

The church base after rubble and filler to the walls

 The next step was to base all of the buildings with a thorough coat of chocolate brown acrylic floor paint. This was a tip I was given by old pal Dave Bodley of Grand Manner. I must admit, they looked awful after the brown coat & I panicked a little that they were literally ruined!

Much happier after I'd added some colour!

Then began nearly three days of dry-brushing frenzy. Although I ended up using a palette of six different shades of stone and earth, the end result isn't that apparent in the photos. After looking very 'samey' initially, they really took on a more lively appearance after the grass was added.

 

 

The luckier side of the village!

That alley will no doubt make a great ambush point.

The not-so-lucky side.

The unluckiest place. That's SOME crater!

The whole bunch comfortably take up 2x3 feet square. Enough for CoC or IABSM.

I'm all together quite pleased with how they've turned out. I'm still going to add a little soot in the pock marks in the walls and may keep an eye out for any additional buildings to add while I'm at Derby show. I'm looking forward to giving them a run out in the next couple of weeks at a club night.

Best laid plans.......

Well, that was longer than anticipated!

I've been a tad tardy on the blogging front of late, but like a serene image of a swan on the river, there's plenty going on out of sight.

I could spout any number of excuses as to my lack of blogging. From the school holidays, the good weather, my wife taking some holiday etc. but to be honest, the single biggest factor has been.....

Welcome to our family Maya!

As I spend so much time alone, it had been decided that some company might be a good idea. In a stroke of good fortune, friends of friends were looking to re-home their 2 year old Husky/Staffy cross. I've discovered one of the most enjoyable aspects of dog ownership. There are a large number of wonderful walks ending in beer gardens locally!

Anyhow, back to hobby stuff. As I mentioned I'd not been idle.

First up I laid into my ever enlarging Sherman collection. I'd decided some time ago that as I had enough now I'd actually decal them up with specific unit markings.

Production line. Somehow a few Universal Carriers slipped in too!

I picked up 10 more Sherman II's for a bargain £20 on eBay. Although there's a leaning toward folks believing that all British late war Shermans were V's, the 4th & 8th Armoured Brigades were still equipped with large numbers of II's at the onset of the Normandy Campaign. I added in a couple of Sherman Ic 'Firefly's' to make up troops and a DD to support my paras in their early encounters.

The first four mark II's have been decalled as 4th with their black rat emblem. These would be handy for games in both Operation Epsom & Goodwood settings and they even supported Highland Division troops east of the Orne.

On that subject, the first six carriers also received decals for The Highland Division. The DD got a 'Pregnant Pilchard' (the seahorse emblem on 13/18th Hussars tanks) and large red turret numbers.

All the decals were again sourced from the excellent http://www.domsdecals.com/

Paul next door and me also started our new CoC At The Sharp End campaign (one for another post) between his TWO holidays in the last month!

With the lack of gaming, I've taken advantage to clear a project I've had lined up for some time. Having taken inspiration from Wee Derek's efforts http://dereksweetoys.com/2014/07/even-more-ruins/, I dug out my collection of ruined buildings and set about creating the less picturesque side of Normandy. Pictures will follow.

I've also invested in a new project for CoC. A good deal of time has been spent trawling the interwebs sourcing new scenery, vehicles, a few figures, some Niiice buildings and even a TRAIN! for:

Go East young man!

Rumour has it a platoon (plus) of winter panzergrenadiers may have been painted too. Post to follow.

Finally, next Saturday sees another Wyvern Wargamers all-dayer where the members get the chance to set up a bigger game than on club nights and have at it for longer. I'm massively looking forward to this one as none other than Big Rich himself has accepted the invite to play (not umpire) in a game of 15mm Big CoC! I have the scenario in mind. There'll be five players in total. Yet ANOTHER blog topic for what promises to be a busy week.

The genie is out of the bottle!

Atlantikwall "Throw them back into the sea"

OK, it's been much longer than I would have liked since my last blogging, but I can assure you I've not been slacking on the hobby front! Given that my boys have finished school & my wife has taken a week's annual leave since then, I've been far more productive than anticipated.  Taking into account the beautiful weather and a hospital visit or two, I've not done bad at all.

So, what have I been up to?

While preparing for our last game, between Paul's American Armoured Infantry & my GREEN German festungstruppe (more of that later), the conversation turned to fortifications among other things and my interest was peaked into putting in some work on my little collection of bunkers and what-not.

This was the haul in my "bunker box". All hoarded with good intentions over a period of time.

The two at the rear are small MG nest bunkers from Jamie's collection. In front are two of the now discontinued(?) little Tobruk nests. Both sets from Battlefront.

This radar bunker (left) and 50mm A/T gun pit are both from Antenociti. There will be a white metal gun in the pit when finished (supplied as part of the kit).

These are marketed as Anti-Tank bunkers by Battlefront. I bought them with the intention of using them for more wider ranging purposes, right up to things like the bunkers at Mérville (these are BIG bunkers!)

I picked these up on a whim from eBay for £6. They are quite simplistic, but I wanted to see if they could be employed as observation type bunkers with a little imagination. I think they're from the Spanish manufacturer Baueda.



As the weather has been so warm, I've been working in the garden whenever possible. I cut bases from MDF, glued down all roofs & gave them all an undercoat with good old Halford's Grey Primer. Where appropriate, I built banks of earth around the structures using blue "insulation" foam. This high density foam is awesome to work with & can be cut and sanded to shape easily. I experimented with the texturing using some of Rich Clarke's tile grout and PVA recipe. It worked really well! I'll be using that a lot in future methinks.

I don't know exactly what it was that set me in motion to actually do this project. Given that although they're mentioned in the CoC rule book, there's no real framework for using bunkers in a game. You just CAN'T game Normandy without having some sort of brush with fortifications, so I'd see their use as scenario specific, but their effectiveness (and the likelihood there will be more than one on table) will mean that careful consideration will need to be given to their employment.

The gun pit & "observation/MG bunker with earth tone added and hooks made from florists wire. I intend to add some netting here and there to give them some camouflage.

One of the big bunkers before being drilled and wired. There is some significant blast damage to both of the big bunkers and I hope to depict some protruding rebar by using some gridded plastic mesh from my bits box. I've earthed the roofs of all of the bunkers as I want to give the look similar to the batteries at Mérville and Longues.

Add caption

 

after adding grass to match my terrain I painted metalwork with German Camouflage Black/Green and added small quatities of rust with weathering powder mixed with white spirit.

After painting on a few stripes of Reflective Green to break up the large solid areas, netting made from an old crepe bandage has been added. First I soaked strips of the bandage in very dark brown, diluted craft paint. after leaving overnight to dry I then soaked it again in dilute PVA so it could be shaped and hung around the walls more naturally. I "encouraged" more wayward pieces by supergluing, but when this dried with a white powdery finish I was forced to paint the final product. This was easy as it had dried solid.

Rear view of the same.

It's sister bunker before any camo.

Front & rear shots of the radar bunker. This one is begging for some sort of Douvres-la-Deliverande type assault scenario.

These two have deliberately been left until last. I wanted to experiment on the cheaper ones first!

Paul-Next-Door and me are due to start a new "At the Sharp End" campaign shortly. He'll be playing some flavour of Americans (probably Armoured Infantry given their HUGE amount of firepower) while I'll be putting up the German resistance. We're planning on rolling up characters and generating the finer details in the next few days. I may opt for those green grenadiers again! They are a frightening prospect when you consider how easily hit they are (Paul was hitting on 3-up and re-rolling his ones!), but there's the up-side that you are pretty much guaranteed to use plenty of your toys as support choices, even in the opening games. They even managed to get help from a Tiger in the last outing. Maybe he'll let me get some of these bunkers on the table?.....You never know!