Some Recent Hobby Action

Ok so most of this post is from a few weeks ago. But work and research for an upcoming battlefield tour have meant that there has not been a good deal of hobby time.

First up are the finished Chaos Rhino's and Predators for my Epic Armageddon "Black Legion".

Black Legion Predators

Black Legion Predators

Black Legion Rhinos

Black Legion Rhinos

These are some lovely models to paint, such a shame that they are out of production. 

Next up are a few pictures from the set up of a game between two of my friends. They played a 3K Epic Armageddon battle using the Net Epic Armageddon lists. James took his Salamanders against Neil's Blood Angels. Unfortunately Neil's Blood Angels were not painted.

I didn't get to stay for the whole game but what I did see made it look like it was going to be a very close range brutal game. 

I didn't really get any good shots of the two armies but I will remedy that soon enough. But James has a very nice scenery collection that comes from a range of manufacturers but he has done a great job with the painting and basing to get it all to match in together.

Currently working my way through a unit of Chaos Defilers that should be completed within the next week or so. They are a pleasure to paint, just finding the time that is the problem.

I also took advantage of the sale by Plastic Soldier Company to get some more tanks in 20mm for my early/mid war Germans. I will be going to the Barbarossa campaign weekend later in the year, most of the armour that I have is all in late war camo schemes so need to get painting grey. These should take too long to do and for the Infantry I am just going to add some more details. Most of the uniforms will just about do, I might add a few new figures into the mix to give the platoons a bit more of an "early" feel. The main thing is that they all have the correct weapons.

Finally here is a quick picture of some of the reading material that I am going through.

Not sure how much of this lot will get read cover to cover as I have more books to go through. Currently working on the 6th Airborne research.

Battle Group Fall of the Reich and Epic Armageddon Game Ulthwe Vs Skitarii

This weekend was a good one not only for the weather but also for gaming as I managed to get two games in.

Saturday afternoon saw James and I replay the Bridgehead Breakout Scenario, this time we kept the forces the same and switched sides. This made for a very interesting game as we both knew what worked and what didn't for each force based on the last game.
This was one of the most enjoyable games that I have played in a long time, the game was very close and finished with the Airborne going beyond their breakpoint and the German force being 2 points away from breaking. Nail bitingly close to say the least, just a shame that we didn't manage to get any pictures of the game.

Sunday saw an outing for my Ulthwe force against the Skitarii, again this was 3K points Epic Armageddon using the Net Epic Armageddon list and proved to be a very interesting game as I took a very different style of list to what I am used to. I relied a lot on a Storm Serpent and a Webway to deploy two formations of Guardians and one of Black Guardians.
I had added a few extras to a couple of the formations in the form of Wraithguard, these proved to be worth the points invested.

The Revenant Titans took a beating and spent most of the game broken which was frustrating as they were probably my hardest hitting unit for range and damage that they could deal out. They did absorb a lot of firepower however so the trade off was worth it.

The Storm Serpent was also very useful and I think it will be a a regular fixture in the list. It helps that I have a proxy ready to get painted in the scheme ( I was using another proxy from my Dropzone Commander Shaltari Force which was painted in a yellow scheme, thankfully I have a spare so that will be done in Black and Gold).

The Epic game was also another very close game that had to be called when we ran out of time. I would say that the game could have gone either way based on the next few activations, if it had been tied and gone to points then I think I may well have stolen it.

Either way it was a great game for learning different aspects of how to use the army and also of Epic Armageddon full stop.

I also managed to get the Rhino's and Predators finished for my Black Legion so the Defilers are awaiting their turn on the spraying bench ready to be painted up. The question is what unit to build and paint after them?

Breakout from the Bridgehead

Last night I managed to get my first proper game in a while against my regular opponent.

We played Fall of the Reich (One of the Battlegroup supplements). We decided that we would use British Airborne against a scratch German force made up of mostly support Halftracks and Volks Grenadier.
Next was the scenario and we decided to try Bridgehead Breakout and work out forces to roughly 450 points a side.

For the Airborne I took pretty much most of what was painted (they are newly painted by James so good to get them on the table).

Two Platoons of infantry each with a Vickers.
Then from the Overlord book we used the points and battle rating for the Airborne HQ and Recon squad.
These were backed up by some off table 3" mortars.

 As you can see it was a fairly small force and lacked a bit of punch.

The German force was likewise based around two platoons of infantry.
HQ in a Halftrack
A Flame Halftrack
A support haltrack (cannot remember the name)
A Pz II (the fact that this was a mortar spotter caused me some issues in the first two turns).
An Infantry gun was also taken.
Some additional morale (rolled a 1 for this)
Finally support arrived in the form of 120mm mortars (off table).

The infantry

The support

The battle rating for  the Paras was 39
The Germans was a lower 28

For objective we had the bridge (as per the scenario), The farmhouse in the center of the table and the industrial building along the main road running from the bridge. We felt that these should create some interesting situations and challenges (rather than just placing markers somewhere on the table).

The table

When I use the term "bridge" I mean Ford

The Germans only started with the Pz II on the table where as the Paras managed to start with five units on the table. The recon squad was backed up with a Piat team behind the hill while another squad along with a Piat team and a platoon command deployed into the woods ready to advance to the farm house and secure the objective there.

 The first turn saw the Para infantry squad try and advance only to get pinned by mortar fire called in from the PII (a Recon command vehicle so had Mortar spotter).

 The Paras and a Piat team make it to the farm house. Securing the objective. However support would not be coming anytime soon.

The Germans come on boldly across the fields having seized the industrial building and make a push for the farm house.

 The Flame Halftrack burns out both the Piat team and the squad. Leaving the farm house open for the taking.

 The paras manage to get across the ford, only to be stopped in the woods and corn stubble. The orders being poor (on average 6-7 a turn) meant the Paras could not get the impetus needed to make a push on the farm house.

 Salvation in the form of air support. Karma played a role as we only had a Hurricane to use as a Typhoon. This proceeded to miss with all rockets and cannon fire over the next few turns.

With the Germans in control of two out of three objectives and the Paras pinned around the ford, it was time to concede the field and fall back. The paras strength has really been sapped in the battle for the farm house. Some unlucky order rolls and an aweful lot of failed morale checks leading to pinned or retreating units meant the Paras just could not muster the strength to recapture the farm house.
The Germans on the other had got quite lucky with a few vital order rolls and Beyond the Call of Duty morale rolls. The German losses were actually quite light and they had mustered in strength around the fields and farm house.

The game was a lot of fun in the early turns when, both sides made use of the Reserve move order, leading to plenty of Reserve fire orders. It was really difficult to get the Paras moving once the attack had stalled and lacking any long range threat to the half tracks (other than pinning them) forced the paras on to the defence.