Trip of a lifetime

 For several years now my wife and I had been planning to bike the French Way of the Camino de Santiago across Spain from Roncesvalles in the Pyrannes to Compostela de Santiago. Then a couple of things happened to put our plan on hold. Firstly, Covid and after that I needed to complete my masters for work (which I finished last year) but with those things out of the way 2024 was the year to finally do this trip.

Since New Zealand is as far away from Europe as you can possibly get we decided to really make a trip of it. My wife’s elderly aunties and cousins all live in North Wales so we needed to see them as part of this adventure. As we were going to go from Wales to Spain and since Normandy is on the way how about stopping in for a couple of days as I’ve always wanted to explore the invasion beaches and some of the inland battlefields I asked my wife. 

“Only a couple of days?” She responded.

Well…

So, in the end we decided to spend a week in Normandy, taking a ferry from Portsmouth to Ouistreham (Sword beach) and then we headed to Caen. We decided to incorporate a bit of biking into the trip and decided to spend seven days biking in Normandy and make our way across the Cotentin Penninsula to Mont St Michel (I knew that plan would meet with her indoors approval). We arranged to hire a couple of e-bikes in Caen and the plan was to from there along the Orne canal to Pegasus Bridge, then down to Sword Beach, along Juno and Gold Beaches to Port en Bessin, then head inland to Bayeux. From there we would head to Villers Bocage, Vire Normandie and Mortain before heading to Mont Saint Michel and then down to Rennes where we would be dropping off the bikes.

Google maps estimated it to be about 300km all up but we ended up doing 370km over the 7 day ride.

I am slightly envious of those that live in the UK and can simply pop over to Normandy and NW Europe to explore WW1 and WW2 battlefields, for us it is at least a 24 hour journey to Europe, the longest leg on or flight from Auckland to Doha was 18 hours! So it goes without saying that when we pop over to Europe, or anywhere for that matter, it needs to be fore a decent amount of time. All up my wife and I were away from 5 weeks: a week in Wales, a week in Normandy, then almost three weeks in Spain, 14 days of which were spent biking the Camino (another 800 kms). 

Craig 

More 20mm WW2 gaming

O Group

I have been geting a few WW2 games in of late. I’ve met up with a couple of local gamers who play O Group by Dave Brown. They are battalion level set rules so one stand equals a section of men and one tank represents 2. I’ve never and an issue with “bathtubbing” games, it has been around as long as the hobby has been and enables gamers to fight at a higher scale of game than they otherwise would. There are some interesting mechanics in the rules, such as the combat patrol mechanism, which keeps the fog of war aspect strong in the game. I’ve only had a couple of games so far but enjoyed them both, and hope to have another game tomorrow.

The local gamers here in Oamaru plays O group in 15mm. I have a very, very large collection of 15mm WW2 from my FoW days (or should that be decade) but I really struggle to get any enthusiasm either for painting miniatures in that scale or the armoured vehicles these days. Having spent the last decade or so concentrating on 28mm skirmish style WW2 (eg Bolt Action), I really don’t enjoy gaming in 15mm any more and cannot motivate myslef to want to paint anyhting in 15mm.

Luckily though, I have found an answer. Returning to “God’s true scale”, where it all began for me in the late 1970s. 20mm or 1/72 scale. I have surprised myself at how much I really do enjoy putting together plastic kits!  there is defnitely an aspect of nostalgia involved. Back in the day my friend Ian and I started gaming with Airfix and Matchbox kits and then later added Eski vehicles to our collections and so there was quite a discrepancy in the size of vehicles on the table- try putting an Airfix Panther (1:76) beside an Esci Panther- the Esci one dwarfs the Airfix model! 

Anyway, I have been doing a bit made painting up British and German forces mainly using Plastic Soldier Company kits. Their 1/72^nd stuff is nicely detailed and, unlike the Esci kits which were first and foremost designed for modellers and have lots of very fiddly parts, are easy to put together having only a couple of dozen parts at most. The kits tend to come with bits of stowage and options to make 2 or even 3 variants of the main model and so they are very, very good value for money. So I guess I am regressing to my childhood, spending much of my spare time building and painting kits for gaming.

Battlegroup

The other game I’ve been starting to play is Battlegroup. Battlegroup plays very differently to O Group, more of a platoon level game and a good excuse to get toys on table. Another gamer I’ve recently met, Richard, lives about an hour and a half away near Dunedin and has a sizeable collection in 20mm and this is his preferred gaming scale. Hence my new addiction to collecting 20mm WW2. He has a fantastic set up and have had a couple of really enjoyable days of gaming in his wargaming room and was the motivator for me getting a “small” 20mm collection underway myself- I much prefer to use my own armies than borrow someone elses. 

So far I’ve enjoyed the games of Battlegroup, I really enjoy the morale mechanic whereby you draw a chit each time you lose a unit (and occasionally for other things like losing and objective) and the chits have a number between 1-5 and a few other “events” that might happen. Each armies breakpoint is a secret but you add up the chits you draw and the game ends when you reach your armies breakpoint, so you can never be sure about who is closer to breaking. It definitely adds tension to the game, especially when nearing your breakpoint, as when you want to rally troops you need to draw a chit, so it can all go horribly wrong for you. It is a nice “for of war” mechanic.

So far my only complaint with the game of is that a couple of our games have been a bit static tank shoots. I’ve not sure if that is because of the rules, the lists, or simply lack of experience with the ruleset. I like infantry to have an important part in a game and to date infantry has been a  bit underwhelming in our games. However, I do like the fact that most artillery is “off table” and the game feels like I assume a WW2 battlefield would, with artillery playing an important role and being able to reach infantry from afar. Infantry feel vulnerable, sometimes I think they are too vulnerable, but I think that is me and not the rules, or at least I hope that is me. So I enjoy the feel, I just need to get better and figuring but how best to use infantry effectively, which I am sure is user error rather than the rules themselves.

 Youtubing

Finally, this blog has been a bit neglected for late and that is mainly because I’ve been doing most of my battle reports as videos and uploading them to by youtube channel: The Wargaming Den. 

20mm Fallschrimjager

Finally, I've been buiding up a force of Fallschrimjager in 20mm using the lovely AB Miniatures range. I cannot  recommend them highlyu enough, the AB scultps are the best on the market and wellw orth the price. 

My FJ force assembled for a solo game of Battlegroup yesterday. 

I added a couple of PSC panthers to the collection this week.

The Fallschimjager- I've based them so I can use them with both O GRoup, Battlegroup, or Rapid Fire Reloaded

Until next time. 
 

20mm WW2 British Infantry

 This Friday I am heading down to Dunedin for my second game of Battlegroup vs Richard. I have finished my Germans and had them as my backup force should I not get then Brits done in time and  have been patiently waiting for my order from AB Miniatures of 20mm British infantry to arrive. On Monday the figures turned up so I've spent the last couple of nights getting them painted up an ready for Friday's game.

The AB figures are everything that I have heard and was extremely impressed by the quality of the sculpts and details. I think I have found 2 figures with a wee bit of flash but that was easily removed. The sculpts have incredible details and are very realistic both in poses and also in the body proportions- more so than the chunky look of 28mm Warlord Games figures for example. They are not the cheapest way to buy in 20mm but in my opinion well worth their cost and I will definitely be getting more. 

In the past couple of nights I've gor the infantry painted up an ready for Friay's game. I have painted up:

• A forward HQ (3 figs)
• Forward observer (2 figs)
• 1x MMG team
• 1x 3" mortar team 
• Platoon HQ: command stand, 2" mortar team, PIAT team
• 3x rifle sections each of 10 figs including an NCO with an SMG and a Bren gun
• 3x carrier patrol teams (Bren, PIAT and 2" Mortar)

 The force for my first game- a platoon of infantry supported by a carrier patrol, 3x Cromwell's, 1x M10 Archilles, 1x 6pdr, an MMG, a 3" Mortar team, and an observer team for some off board artillery. 

The Rifle platoon

Infantry support- carrier patrol, MMG, 3" Mortar, forward HQ an observer . 

Tank support- 3x Cromwells an an M10

The supports 

The infantry platoon

Craig

20mm WW2 Germans

 Reinforcements for my 20mm German forces. I bought a platoon of the PSC German Afrika Korps infantry which I'll use for LW infantry in Italy and also for mountina troops. The ultracast sculpts are nice and have little flash.

The finished product, a platoon of LW infantry based on the DAK sculpts.

I also made up a couple of sets of PSc transports this week- the Steyr heavy car and the opel blitz. both are goo etial kits with plenty of options. I have made one of the Opels as a mautlier. 

PSC `1/72 Steyr cars. 

PSC 1/72nd Opel Blitz trucks. 

PSC Waffen SS

I also bout some stugs from Trademe, NZ's version of Ebay, which I repainted.  

I've aso made up some PSC M5 half tracks which again are lovely sculpts and were a joy to put together and paint. 

And an armourcast M10 Archilles. A pretty basic model, it has about 10 parts but I added some stowage from the various PSC kit. I used some of the British infantry from the M5 half track kit to add crew to the model

And a comparision- 28mm vs 20mm. They are so tiny!

Finally, last weekend my friend Ian came down and we spent an enjoyable day playing Rapid Fire Reloade. We fought a scenario I'd come up with for the 2nd Argyll and Stherlan Highlanders in Malaya in early 1942. We played the game twice, each time taking turns at being the Japanese and in both game sit was a narrow victory to the British. 

I'm very happy with how my Far East terrain has turned out. 

Craig

PSC 1/72nd Cromwells

 The first of my PSC kits turned up today, three Cromwell tanks. They are pretty straight forward to put together (after checking out the youtube video guide from PSC) and are nicely detailed. I've added some camo nets made out of gauze to add a wee bit more interest to the models.

I also put together a Warlor games 2pdr for my British in Malaya forces. Like many of the metals kits they gun was a pain in the butt to put together but eventually I got it sorted. 

An finally, I added a secondChi ha tank to my Japanese forces.This one was a Warlord plastic kit which i enjoyed putting toether, my other tow models are both oler Warlord Resons- a Chi Ha an a Shinhoto which is the later war version with an upgraded gun an turret. I also took the opportunity to repint them with a new colour scheme. 

Craig

Gaming like its 1979

 I popped down to Dunedin yesterday and dropped into the model shop run by Lindsay and Richard in the hope that they still hadsome copies of the Battlegroup rules I'd spied there a few months back. Unfortunately they didn't have any left but they do have a pretty good range of model kits including the venerable Airfix range and so I managed to pick up a copy of the bren gun carrier and 6pdr which is the first 20mm kit I've purchased in over 20 years!

I think I would have first purchased one back in about 1979 when I was first getting into wargaming so it definitely does bring back memories of the days of yore.

The kit as first released in 1964 so it 60 years old this year!

The finished product. 

I actually really enjoyed putting this one together, it was a definite trip own memory lane. The crew figures are horrible and my wargaming sensbilities tells me that I need to replace them with some AB miniatures figures but on the other hand I am tempted to keep them purely for the old school vibe. 

Craig

First game of Battlegroup

 On Saturday I popped own south to have  a game of a ruleset I’ve heard about but not tried out, Battlegroup. I decided some time ago that I didn’t need a new ruleset, or could be faffed learning a new set for that matter. However, I’d heard rumours of a mythical creature, well down here in NZ anyway, was lurking in the rural Otago, one of the fabled 20mm WW2 wargamers. 

I ditched my 20mm collection back in 2002 or thereabouts when Battlefront was first starting out with Flames of War. I a few local gamers were keen on get into WW2 so it made sense to move to 15mm where there was a lot more availability,  so I sold of all my collection of WW2 vehicles an figures. 

I’d not met Richard before but he was an absolute gentleman and provided an outstanding venue and days gaming. Richard provided fairly balanced armies to give is a good feel of the rules and he has a fantastic gaming set up and collection of WW2.

We played a 500 point game with Germans vs Americans and each had a platoon of infantry a troop of tanks, a tank hunter and some artillery support (and in my case airsupport)

The table

As the americans I had just captured na undefended bridge and was seeking to exploit this while the Germans were trying to drive me backa ross the river. 

Turn 1- i had a sniper and FOO in the builing and a squad of infantry near the fields. 

Turn 3- I advance towars the wood but alas a German MG 42 team got their first. 

Turn 4- US reinforcements arrive

The squad in the field are cut on but the US artillery has been hipping away at the Germans and inflicitng casualties. 

in the end the game ended with a victory to the Americans. 

I really enjoyed the game and the rules. There were a few things that I would raise an eyebrow at (lack of smoke) but I enjoyed the command system, the attrition system for determining when a force breaks and the artillery rules which although a bit of a process I liked the scatter dice concept to determine the fall of shots. Overall the game felt right and gave good period feel and I’d put it miles ahead of Bolt Action in that regard alone so can see me playing a few more games in future.

The only drawback? Richard games in 20mm. My collections are mainly 15mm WW2 though now I’ve fairly sizeable 28mm one as well. I don’t really want to go back ot 20mm gaming or start a new scale but I am seriously tempted to get some AB miniatures late war British infantry to build a small 20mm force to game vs Richard- we will see.

Overall, the game was fun, gave a good feel for the period and had no “gotcha’s” that some other rule sets do have so I'd defintely recommend it to others.