BA 8th Army vs DAK

Having completed 800 pts for each side now it was time to give Finn a taste of the rules, we each had 800pts of stuff.

DAK
Reg officer
3x DAK platoons (Vets)
artillery observer
Panzer III J

8th Army
Reg officer
3x Reg platoons
2 pdr
Vickers MMG
3" mortar
AT rifle
Valentine

As it turned out the Germans were outnumbered and out diced, as soon as I get some MMGs and mortars we will try it again. I also want to add a pa 38 to the German list.

Germans on the left, larger British force on the right. 

 My newly painted up Paner III "special". I need to get some transfers ordered.  

An a Valentine II. Alas both our tans were taken out by artillery strikes- both rolling 6s to hit when our bombardments came in!

The British advance on their left flank with 2 sections.

The panzer III searching for targets. It hit the valentine on turn 1 but the shot glanced off the Valentines' front armour.

The 2 pdr lines up the panzer III.

The British artillery strike pinned almost all the German platoons- not good! We'll leave off board artillery at home next time and focus on getting to grips with infantry tactics.

The pinned Germans were routed in hand to hand fighting.

And the same on the left flank.

Was an enjoyable first time but need to have similar number of dice next time and focus on a few basic elements.- the artillery strike was too effective.

Craig

A new bach

Somehow over the break I managed to buy a new holiday home. We  spotted it while on a walk one evening at Kakanui and went for a look the next day and ended up putting an offer in. Being an unintended purchase it has meant we’ve spent quite a bit of time tidying up our current bach and getting it ready to sell. We enjoy the place we have, it is sunny and secluded and is a proper bach, no flashy modern holiday home here; it's pretty basic but a great spot to relax but if we were to live in it long term it would need some major renovations- I had an draftsmen teed up start drawing up some plans for an additional bedroom the day after we found the new place. 

The new place is a modern (holiday/family) home-  (iits only a few years old and has all the mod cons you'd expect). It’s on the seaward side of Kakanui and has great views over over the northern beach and Kakanui river mouth. I am buying it with an eye to the future, intending it as a place for us to move down to and live in permanently (sooner hopefully rather than later). In the short term though we’ll rent it out and maybe aim is to set it up as a holiday home rental with book-a-bach for next summer (probably from round Oct).

We went unconditonal and put the deposit on it this week so now just have to wait till the official purchase date at the ed of February. 

Kakanui- the surf beach (Campbell's bay) is at the bottom of the shot and is about 4km of golden sand and great surf. 

The new place.

It's also about a 250m-300m walk down the hill to the surf beach.  Now all I need to do is sell our current bach to get the mortgage back down to a reasonable level.

 Craig

DAK Platoon completed

The platoon for the Afrika Korps is now completed and will be the basic building block of the force.
It includes:
Lieutenant and NCO
Medic (conversion)
3x squads of 1x SMG (NCO), 1x LMG, 8x riflemen.

I also have 3 extra LMG teams done.

I need to add 2x MMGs and an 81mm mortar to round out the 800 pt force.  I am aiming for it to e representative of a force during the battles of Alamein and intend to add some minefields and barbed wire entanglements, along with a section of pioneers (I've ordered some TAG panzerknackers for these and hope they aren't too large compared to the Perry's). 

The figures have only been block painted and then an Army Painter soft tone wash added, I've still to go over and highlight the uniforms.

The medic.

 The lieutenant.

 An LMG conversion. The LMGs are on slightly deeper bases to make it easier to pick them out form the other teams.

The infantry fan out and advance. I know that multi-basing isn't everyone's cup of tea for games like Bolt Action but I like it for two reasons:
1) you can make much more interesting (scenic) bases
2)  you don't need to unpack, move and repack so many figures during the game. 

Overall I'm happy with the look of them so far but need to get cracking and order a couple of MMGs and the mortar from the Perry's.

Craig

DAK Infantry

Two sections and platoon command done, one section to go.

Craig

WIP- Perry DAK Infantry

The new Perry releases has inspired me to get to work on my Mediterranean theatre German infantry. My aim is to build a force suitable for the desert or for the Sicily/Italy campaigns.

I aim to build 3x 8 man squads to begin with, each with 2 LMGs to represent a panzer grenadier platoon. I must say that I enjoyed putting together the Perry infantry far more than I did the Bolt Action EW Germans which are IMO far too fiddly with too many pieces. In fact in future I will be going with metals rather than with the BA plastics, and have just ordered some BTD Russians as I can't face assembling the BA plastic ones.

 My only gripe with the Perry's is a lack of extra weapons, in fact there is a shortage of rifles in the box set. To rectify this I am using some arms from the Warlord Games Germans to add more variety. Some of the arms are a bit long so have been shortened slightly but overall the work pretty well. 

A few Bolt Action additions to the Perry minis.

 A kneeling LMG team

 The kneeling guy below is probably my favourite figure so far.

Basing and highlights to do but am happy with them so far.

My only question being in the main rulebook it states 2 LMGs for +20pts, not +20pts each. Everyone else gets 1 for 20pts, I wonder if this is a typo.

Craig

Perry's have done it again!

I see that the Perry' have just released their latest WWII additions. I have a box set of the DAK infantry awaiting getting started so will be getting the mortars and HMGs to round off the force.

  How can you pass up a Blitzkrieg Bison?

The recce kubelwagon looks incredible too!

  

The British infantry in trousers are another fantastic addition to their range. I like the flexibility of the plastics but find that sometimes they do look a  wee bit stilted pose wise. These metals look to be up the the very high standard of the Perry's. I think I can see some Kiwi's in Italy as an upcoming project...

Craig

Ever wanted to build a castle?

One thing NZ doesn't have is castles. We have one, apparently, it's Called Larnach's Castle in Dunedin which is more of a mansion and gardens and so it is  not what I would call a castle- I was disappointed going there as a kid as I as expecting it to be castle.

However, just north of Oamaru is a place called Riverstone Kitchen which is the only South Island winner of NZ restaurant of the year. 10 years ago it was a paddock, now it is a restaurant, cafe and giftshops and soon they will have a castle.  Not sure if it is to ward off Norma invasions or what but it will look pretty impressive once finished. It will be faced in the local Oamaru stone (limestone) and comes compete with  moat!

Bolt Action: Slaughter in the jungle

Dave has picked up some Japanese for Bolt Action so he and Kent used them vs my 14th Army British.Today I painted up a sniper team to use against them and was feeling reasonably confident going into the game. We decided on a refight our last battle (point defence) this time with the British as defending.

I ran
1st Liuetentant and sergeant
FOO (free)
3x rifle sections
1x Ghurka section (Vets)
1x sniper
1x Vickers MMG
1x recce carrier.

Kent and Dave ran:
HQ + sergeant
medic
light mortar
2x 11man rifle sections
10x vets
1xJuu MMG
1x Chi ha tank

I put my Gurkhas and carrier in reserve while the Japanese deployed their entire force. 

Turn 1, the Japanese move onto the table. The preliminary bombardment killed a couple of my teams and several sections were pinned.

 

 Turn 2. The Japanese advanced through the jungle. My FOO calls in a bombardment on the tank.

 Turn 3.The artillery bombardment fails to arrive and the FOO is killed by the Chi-ha tank.

 My infantry hold the far left flan and centre, awaiting the Japanese onslaught. By this stage my sniper had managed to kill a crewman for the MMG bt the MMG and light howitzer were starting to inflict losses on my troops.

 The third infantry platoon stalks my infantry. I come out of ambush to pin them but inflict no losses.

The Japanese get the first action of the next turn and charge.

  They kill 5 men for the loss of three and take the objective. .

 In the centre the veterans and 2nd regular section continue to advance.

  My right flank is now in tatters as the sniper too is killed.

 The Japanese are though the jungle and ready to charge home. The Chi-ha and howitzer inflict losses on my mean and they fail to follow an order to fire on the Japanese.

 Suddenly I am down to 1 team! My Gurkhas and 3rd section move to assist but they too are cut down by the tank, howitzer and rifle fire.

 The crier roars on and misses the tank!

 The Japanese are unstoppable and sweep all before them.

 End of turn 6 this is the last team on bard- apart from my carrier!

 And he then dies.

Wow! Talk about one sided. I killed a MMG crewman in turn 2 or 3, 3 teams in the assault and that was it!  The Japanes emortars, howitzer and tank simply tore through me, I failed to cause any serious hits on the infantry to slow them down and was cut to peices. A complete reverse of the last game. Fun, if very one sided.

One thing we are missing is some foxhole rules, I think we'll use FoW style dug in status for defenders and count them as in hard cover to see if that helds somewhat... and bring back the Stuart!

Craig