First Look; Kampfgruppe Normandy & Instant mould

I managed to get a game of Kampfgruppe Normandy in taking advantage of my "free" childminder (mother) and headed on down the shop with Nick & Coops,

we decided to play 250 points and it would be Nick's SS panzer's up against my German Infantry,

We both looked at the huge amount of scenarios and thought escalation would be the easiest to start with, now straight away the deployment rules made us both "ooohh" with the Recce elements starting on turn one, the vanguard coming on in turn two and the main force coming on in turn three, but we missed the bit where D6 units come on each turn though, which wouldn't have made much difference but would have been a laugh to see bits and bobs turn up.


Nicks armoured fist!

 the 88 with a commanding field of fire...

the armoured fist continues to roll forward as it comes into range of the 88, the range for some of the weapons doesn't quite make sense (example is the 88) as the max is 48" for all weapons and depending on the range banding depends on the hit roll, 

my end of the table with the main force walking on, 

and some swift movement starting to get in postion ready for some panthers...

the panthers & tiger halt to start taking some pot shots, now the intresting thing about the shooting is you need to spot your target before you can open up which is a nice twist on the shooting rules, and you have two type of shooting, Supperssion so you can prevent the unit from activating and if you do suprress them you have to take a moral counter to get them going again or direct where you try and slot some of them, 

Nick didn't manage to do any damage from his first salvo, and another really nice twist is that each tank has AMMO! so you choose what mixture of armour pericing and high explosive you want and as you shoot you mark off your ammo, when your out you bring a supply truck up and rearm you tank, now this could be alot of admin but with a little prep easily sorted via excel or word.

and some more jigging about and still waiting, at this point the panzer IV and the stuG opened up on the panther and rounds bounced off it, so the infamous panther started to live up to its name... 

the view of the heroic crew... 

before they both went down to a round of shooting from one panther.... 

but I get my revenge a few turns later with a broadside from a stuG

and the Aeriel view, it wasn't looking good the HMG team and the infantry team were being shot up in the woods and if they went my right flank would collapse..  meanwhile on the left flank Hanz in his command stuG had claimed his second panther and was starting to make the SS panzergrenadiers look a tad nervous...

I threw more infantry into the right flank, and a lone panzerfaust failed to pop the tiger, and the last remaining panther drove in to the woods cutting the HMG team down and securing the objective,

at this point my moral was close to popping....

and a cheeky shot from the panther popped a stuG and it was game over! 

So thoughts and feelings on the system...

Gameplay

Some really nice rules in this system from the off board support, the random air support that "could" turn up, the spotting the target before shooting and so much more!! the rule book is a hefty tomb and some of the rules take a bit of getting used to over all once you get into the flow it plays really quick!


Models

Its 1/72, 1/76, 20mm so there are literally thousands of kits out there for this scale vary in price but the armourfast, plastic solider company and SHQ all mix in fine and looked nice on the table with plenty of randoms coming over to have a look.

Lastability

This one's a keeper! I've tried various WW2 systems and most have been platoon skirmish type games with this one combined arms is your friend as nick discovered with the 105mm off board support, the only draw back is that you have only 3 nations to choose from and both the British & US get two lists each and the Germans get 4, but what I've read on the miniature pages new lists are coming out in the new year via wargames illustrated and they've been play testing tobrok and the russian front so its looking hopeful.

So Instant mold, its been kicking around for a while now and until recently I've not really been that interested in it,

With the stowage packs that I picked up from skytex the other month I figured I'd give the stuff a crack to see if I could pump out some copies.

 

so three sticks in boiling(ish) water and pushing the mold stuff over some bits let it cool down pop those out and bang some green stuff in.

so the actual bits popped out when the green stuff had cured a bit, most of it was pretty good to be honest, I'm not too sure about the panther tracks to I'll re-do that one me thinks.

 












so before today's game I wanted to get all the bits painted that I wanted to use so I peeled my ass off Starwars and blasted out the three stuG's and another two panzer IV's giving the monthly pledge a healthy boost, but looking at the actual year end figures I'm about 14 models short to break even for the year so I'm gonna crank out the remaining german infantry and see if I can get the first model done for one of my 2012 armies.... 

I'm quite happy with the logs on the command stuG 

Till next time...

he might look like my Uncle Paul but this guy is superb.... 

20mm Germans, Flames of war & new direction....

well as anticipated its been a slow month...

Server: Kellian Jarro
Toon's name: Kelmoch

so if your playing Starwars The Old Republic then look me up if you on the same server,

However before I lost my mind to the MMO, I managed to get some of the 20mm Germans done.


So I've built my force around the normal grenadier list in Kampgruppe Normandy, since then I've discovered that a couple of the other lads have also gone for the krauts so I'll be picking up an American force in the new year to give people the choice of what to play against, or what I fancy ;)

 

So, you've a full infantry platoon of 3 squads and command, MG42 team, Supreme commander, 88 Anti-tank gun and a forward arty team, and I've still one pretty full sprue of Germans left to do what I want with.

close up's, I've gone with the battlefront paint set for ease, 

the LMG teams & MG42 team the MG42 is from SHQ miniatures look a little "skinny" but from 12" away slot in fine.

the Supreme command team and forward observer team

The good old 88, just the actual gun bit to do which is gonna be no problem, assuming I can peel myself off my latest crack habit!

 and this is how it came....



an amazing amount of detail for a 20mm model!

and the test paint for the panzer IV, I ended up painting the numbers on by hand as the skytrex ones that I picked up a while back are naff personally,

so with the other two panzer IV's and three stuG's on my painting table about half way through I'll see if I can blast those out before the end of the month.

So the flames guys have announced a 3rd Ed and being the nice chaps that they are you get a free 3rd Ed mini rule book if you have the current hardback, see the link below for more info...

3rd ED info

I think this is a great move once more.. think if GW did this....

And what of this "new direction"

well I was told a couple of weeks ago that there are going to be redundancies at my work, so IF I do go which I'll find out mid Jan I've decided to take the plunge into the big bad world of retail/online retailers for gaming supplies.

I'll start of with paint etc.. and if its worth continuing then I'll move onto models etc, now I'm gonna be careful not to rock the boat with the local shop as the chap is a cracking lad however IF you was going to buy online what would you buy?

Also one thing that I was going to do was commission work to build up some funds, but not sure where to start? any suggestions??

CY6 - Germans 6 O'Clock!!

As my gaming diary tends to be quite "busy" I normally plan games a couple of months in advance so that I can keep various systems on the rotation so that stuff doesn't become stagnant,

This was one that I was looking forward to....

It was time to Check your 6 and go for some bloody spiffing dog fighting!

So the Germans dropped outta the clouds and bumped the RAF, with an Ace down and the other with engine damage the RAF started to fight back, the usual chaos ensured and the funniest part of the game for me was a 109 trying to climb the pilot failing his check and the plane fell through the dog fight zone missing another 109 but clipping a spitfire on the way down, THEN a lucky shot caused another spitfire to spin out of control and poor Barnaby wasn't able to recover and hit the drink!

Nick was rolling quite aggressively and my robustness rolls were pants and 109's were dropping outta the sky at an alarming rate! 

The RAF then decided to try and down the ace as he was on a roll with the shooting and and it ended up as...

we were pretty much level pegging plane for plane,but as time wasn't on our side we called it at turn six and I managed to win by about 2 points!!

So two games on the trot and I'd managed to win both! whats going on!!

  and if your into your music get your lugs round this...

Tropic Lighting or "Why hello Mr G.I."

Its been a long time coming...

The Mighty PAVN up against Coop's armour-tastic US tank company...

So as I've not played FOW for ages! I was rapidly reading the special rules for the PAVN and trying to suss out how to crack front armour 11 tanks with an infantry heavy force!....

So the Mission was Contact, Contact!

I had 1 unit that I could set up in ambush and get a round of shooting before Coops rumbled on with his tanks, and as I would be shooting at his side armour I went for the heavy recoiled anti-tank platoon, and managed to pop one of his patton's and bail the other, so not bad really, then the ACAV came in and put that lot into a early bath!

Coops was on delayed reserves and I could start rolling straight away and managed to get 1 platoon on turn two and the unwashed masses turned up,  was lucky enough to roll in the quarter that had the US objective....

the "Anton" view

and the "cool" view... 

so after some quite savage RPG shooting and sneaking medium recoiled anti-tank shooting the ACAV's are toasted and its just the Patton squaring up against an awful lot of infantry (at this point I felt bad for coops as none of his reserves had turned up)

Thousands of em sir!

And finally Coops managed to get a unit on.... 

only one cobra... how much hassle could that be??

it starts with a rocket pod attack but my saving throws were lucky but they were pinned... 

so after alot of chin scratching I decided to do the sportsman thing and get the grenades out and claim the objective... 

but not before booby trapping the tank... LOL 

the Cobra then sat next to the Patton and between them they managed to repel 4 separate assaults pinning the assaulting units and holding them off!!!

the amount of shots coming from the patton and the Cobra as supporting fire was outstanding!!! I need to do aircav army.

so the platoon with the B41's all took a side step to the right and shot at the Patton in the side and managed to bail it, and then it simply came down to the wire with coops NEEDING to get back in his tank as the rest of his force was finally rolling up the table ready to kick my ass!

And he failed his roll, the PAVN were victorious!!

Armourfast review - Stug's & Panthers

So with some infantry & Panzer's I decided it was time to bulk out the armour, and with the list that I'm going to be running I needed StuG's so after some mooching about I ordered some bits from Armourfast and they live up to there name and they arrived fast!


So first up would be the Stug III















nice looking box art

simple looking sprue

you get two in each box. 

close up with a plastic solider company infantryman for scale factor, Price wise these are a steal £7.50 for 2 so clocking in at £3.75 a piece,

The models are crisp casting wise and quite simple to put together, the only down side for me was the tracks there are all one unit and the bottom of the hull has a raised bit to stick the tracks onto and there a bit of a bugger to suss out if your not knowledgeable with historical armour, but that's here the box art did help!

The other niggle I had was the back of the tank, the engine deck? hangs over the end and you stick the muffler on the back and that's it... just looks a tad naff, but as a wargaming model its not a problem.

So onto the StuH 42

in a nutshell the same kit as the Stug III but with a different barrel and that's it! now I think armourfast are missing a trick here that they could have designed the sprue to have both types of barrel and you'd have a versatile kit that if you modelled it right could be altered between the two.

And the final kit....

The Panther

again nice box art, and I referred to this whilst sticking the mantel together to make sure I didn't get it upside down,

and the size comparison next to an infantryman, and these are bloody big! now the tracks on there are much better designed so weren't a problem and these were dead easy to bang together! ok so you don't get the zimmerit coating but that's not a big problem personally,

so 8 tanks including delivery for £32.24 you can't complain when you could get modeller tanks for about £7 - £10 a piece, personally I think the plastic solider company ones a little better only because of the crewmen that you get and that I've used on the armourfast ones to make them look a bit different,

the ones without the sideskirts I'm gonna stick twigs on the side so that they look like...

and there you go, more amour than you can shake a stick at, all I'm waiting for is the final parcel from SHQ miniatures and I'll the start of a decent force.

So with all this German armour I'm currently looking into airbushes and working out if it'd be worth the cost....

Plastic Soldier Company Review 20mm Infantry & Panzer IV

With myself picking up Kampfgruppe Normandy I did some digging about and with some excellent advice from the guys over on The Miniature Pages I've picked myself up some 20mm WW2 bits,

First up is the infantry, I was a bit dubious to be honest with this lot when going to pick them up as I remembered as a kid the green army men you can get and I thought it might be along the lines of that...

but that was soon blown out of the water as the smart people over at PSC have put a clear window on the back of the box so you can see what they look like, and 57 models for 11 quid its a no brainer!

So the actual sprues...

you get three sprues all the same, and quality wise I'm really impressed  the models are crisp with no flash and just a quick clip em out and your good to go, Some need sticking together but compared to 28mm stuff its a doddle! and you also get spare heads in there if you fancy being well fancy!

Mount them as you like, I've gone for 20mm bases that cost a penny each ;) I can do an entire infantry platoon with one box, that's three squads, platoon HQ and three mg34 teams, the only thing that I need to get hold of is panzerfausts and I've ordered those from SHQ along with some other bits and bobs, so when they turn up I'll put those under the spotlight and see how they compare to the PSC guys.

So on to the "good" stuff... the armour!

Now everyone loves tanks if you don't well why bother gaming!! so the PSC Panzer IV box...

no plastic window on this one, but 3 models for a mighty £12 the words Ding Dong spring to mind, 4 quid a tank that's about the same cost as a pint in some pubs!

So each panzer comes on two sprues....

and again the sprues are crisp with only a little flash around the skirts that go on the hull.

now I thought this was quite clever, must be the same chap who thought of the clear window! the parts are colour coded so depending on what version of the panzer your after you slap those bits on.

So onto the models..

dead easy to put together, 

I did one as a reference, and then faffed about with the skirts on the other two for a more "in the field" look.

close up of the running gear and over all detail.

So over all I'm quite impressed with the quality of the Plastic Soldier Company stuff, the only downer is that this is all they do for the Germans in 20mm, there is alot more in 15mm so aiming for the FOW market, I might have to pick up some 15mm stuff as its 16ish quid for 5 tanks, again a real bargain!