Painting Update

I've been having a break from painting the last few weeks. I just haven't been in the mood and there's been no need to get models painted as I have painted armies for most of the systems I play. But I decided to get the paint brushes out again this week and start on some of the terrain I'd bought.

I bought a load of Kerr & King desert terrain a while ago and I'd painted some test pieces to sort out the best colour scheme but I never got around to painting the models. So in between rain showers I got out my white primer spray to give them a good base coat. Next up was picking out the brick detail in red and I decided to paint the garden tiles the same colour. After that came a bit of brown for the doors and windows and a brown wash over the white 'soil' area in the garden. Once that had all dried out the models were given a good coating of Army Painter 'Strong' tone dip and left to dry for 24 hours. Once they'd dried I gave them a quick dry brush white to pick out the detail and finished off with a spray of matt varnish. All that was left was to add grass flock at the base of the walls and some more flock and tufts to represent the plants in the garden.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. The dip effect isn't as brown as I'd hoped and the plants are a bit too dark, making them hard to pick out against the soil. I'm going to try a brighter flock on the next ones and maybe a dry brush yellow to give them some highlights. But at least they're painted now.

The back garden with the 'invisible' plants

The red isn't as bright as this in real life.

A des. res. with roof terrace

The separate walls came out quite nicely

I also got round to painting my objectives. This one is from Kerr & King as well and was part of their desert village deal. It was painted the same way except I used the Dark tone dip which is more of a black than a brown.

I was also inspired by this great article from the WWPD web site about making your own objectives. I was particularly taken with the idea of using a photo as an objective and adding terrain around it so I thought I'd give it a go. I decided to keep it simple and go with a Soviet star. I found one I liked on Google and printed it out on normal paper. I cut it to size and stuck it on to a spare large base with paper glue. After the glue had dried I gave it a light spray of matt varnish to seal it and then I brushed on couple of coats of gloss varnish to help protect it. Next I brushed on PVA around the star and dipped it in a mix of sand and cat litter. Once that had dried I gave it a wash of Coat D'Arms Mid Brown and a dry brush white to pick out the details followed by some green flock and it was done.

I must say I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It was quick and simple to do and I may do some more for my German and U.S. forces.

Operation Sea Lion: Letters from Cletus 6

In this week's letter home Cletus talks about a trip into town and what happens after the shooting stops. The report on the battle mentioned in this letter can be found here.

Dear Ma & Pa,

Hope everyone back home is doing ok. I'm writing this letter the day after my birthday, 21 at last! But I ain't feeling so good right now on account of the celebrations. That wodka stuff sure packs a punch and close as I can reckon we got though a few jug fulls last night.

But I didn't just spend the day drinking. Somehow the Prof got us a 12-hour pass to go into town to celebrate my birthday. He said that he was going to try and show me some of England without the Nazis shooting at us! We got into Worcester town about 10am and the Prof proceeded to show me round. We saw some streets full of real old houses. I know you wont believe me but the Prof said some of these houses was over six hundred years old! I thought he was yankin' ma chain at first but he said it was the God's honest truth. Then he showed me round this big church he called a cathedral. Oooo ee was it big or what! You could fit our church back home into it ten times over or more. It had all these real pretty windows full of colored glass that made up pictures of the saints and a bunch of other things. It ain't never seen nuthin' like it.

We was getting a mite peckish so the Prof took me to this real fancy eating place right by the river and he bought me lunch. He said it was his birthday present to me. We had roast beef and potatoes and something called Yorkshire puddings. I wern't sure about having a pudding with my beef but when it arrived I saw they was like the popovers we have back home. We even had some wine with our food just like them rich folk do. When we was done we went out onto the balcony and had us a couple of cigars. It was the best meal I'd ate in a long time and for a while we forgot all about the war.

When we got back to camp the russkies threw me a party too. I guess they must have fixed up their still cos we had plenty of that wodka to go round. I don't remember much about the rest of the night 'cept there was lots of singing and dancin'.

We've just been told to move out as we're going into action again. I'll finish this letter when I get chance.

It's been a few days since my birthday now and things didn't go to good for us in the battle. We got told to clear out some Hungarians so we could take a supply dump. The russkies split up into two forces one each side of this river and then they advanced. Didn't seem like we was going to have too much trouble cos all we could see was a bunch of infantry and a tank near some woods that was supporting them. Then this bunch of Panthers ambushes the russkies north of the river and starts knocking out their tanks. The tank supporting the infantry turned out to be a Tiger and it knocked out one of the russkie tanks south of the river. The russkies returned fire but it looked like their shells was just bouncing of the nazi tanks. Pretty soon the northern force was near wiped out, what was left pulled back. It looked like we might take the southern objective as our tanks closed in on it when two more Tigers appeared and knocked out most of our tanks so they had to fall back as well. Near as I can tell we lost eight out of eleven tanks.

We'd been back in camp about a day when the word came that the area was safe for a while and we could go and try to recover the bodies of the fallen. I hadn't done this afore but we was so short-handed on account of the losses that they needed help so I got 'volunteered'. I got into the truck and I saw it had loads of white cotton mattress covers in it. I asked what they was for and they said that's what they put the bodies in on account of they ain't got no coffins.

We got to the battlefield and started to look for bodies. We found some that must have got out of their tanks after they'd been hit. What we found ain't something I want to talk about too much cos it wern't a pretty sight. Course I'd seen dead soldiers afore but these were friends I'd been celebrating my birthday with the night before. Leastways I think they was, some of them was hit so bad it was hard to tell who they was. We had a medic with us whose job it was to work out who the ones we couldn't identify for sure were. I don't know how he did that and I'm not sure I want to know.

We got the mattress covers out of the truck and put the identified bodies into them. Some of them had limbs missing and we had to find them and put them in with the bodies if we did. I didn't think it could get any worse then they told us to bring the bodies out of the burnt and wrecked tanks. What we saw in there was awful, but the worst part was the smell. It didn't smell bad like a dead possum, it smelt like meat that had been left in the stove too long and that ain't right. We had to get the bodies out of the tanks if we could. I won't say what we had to do to prise the bodies free but I reckon I ain't gonna sleep well tonight.

When we'd done what we could we headed back to camp. Someone had dug a big grave and we put the bodies into it. They found a russkie chaplain from somewhere and he said the words over the bodies while we filled in the grave. They put up a marker but it didn't have no names on it. I asked but they said it was just to mark the spot and iff'n they could they'd come back one day and bury them proper.

The camp's kinda quiet now on account of us having lost so many men but I can't go to sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see terrible things. Things no one should ever have to see. But you know what's worse? Knowing that this ain't over and that I'm going to be seeing things like what I saw today over and over again.

Pray for me Ma, I sure could use some of the Lord's comfort right about now.

Your loving son,
Cletus

FoW: Operation Sea Lion - Pincer

Ben made the trip down from Warminster last Friday for another Operation Sea Lion game. This time it was a rematch between my Soviets and his Hungarians. Last time his Zrinyi were no match for my KV-85's and I got an easy win. I was expecting a much tougher battle this time as I reckoned Ben would draft in more heavy armour to counter my advantage and so it proved.

The battle was fought in Worcestershire and we rolled Pincer as the mission with me as the attacker. I took my usual:

Guards Heavy Tank Regiment - Fearless Trained
Gvardeyskiy Tyazhelyy Tankovy Polk HQ - 1 KV-85
Gvardeyskiy Tyazhelyy Tankovy Company - 5 KV-85
Gvardeyskiy Tyazhelyy Tankovy Company - 5 KV-85
Priority Air Support - Il-2 Shturmovik

While Ben took:

Harckocsizó Század (Tank Company) - Confident Veteran

HQ - 1 Tiger 1 E

Harckocsizó Platoon - 2 Tiger 1 E

Harckocsizó Platoon - 3 Panther A

Assault Pioneers - 9 Stands

Rocket Launcher Battery - 3 Nebelwerfers

Ben set up one of the objectives in the woods top right and I placed the other between the road and the plowed field. Ben deployed first and set up his Assault Pioneers in the plowed field and his CiC in the Tiger in the wood just behind them. He kept his Panthers in ambush.

I split my force either side of the river and made a general advance in my first turn. I was worried about the Tiger so took a risk and tried to call in my Sturmis on to it but they couldn't range in because of the trees.

Ben decided to pop his ambush and placed his Panthers in the wooded hill by the T-junction but kept everyone else stationary. His fire from the Panthers managed to bail my CiC on the road north of the river.

The Soviet advance begins.

Next turn I remount the CiC and again try to call in the Sturmis onto his Tiger and again fail to range in. The general advance continues and my long range shooting bounces off his tanks.

Ben again stays where he is and shoots. This time his Panthers knock out one KV and bail another north of the river.

My knocked out KV

The view from Ben's position

The Assault Pioneers wait patiently for the coming onslaught

Having given up on my Sturmi's knocking out his tanks I switch them to the pioneers. The northernmost KV's continue their advance to wards the village and their shooting again bounces off the Panthers. The KV's by the river halt and try to blast the Tiger with nine shots, all of which fail to damage him. The Sturmis do manage to kill a couple of stands of the Pioneers though.

Ben still sits tight to maximise his shooting and his Tiger at last gets it's reward knocking out one of the KV's near the riverbank. His Panthers continue to wear down the other platoon knocking out their second KV.

The process of softening up the Pioneers begins.

Sitting back trading shots wasn't getting me anywhere so I do a general advance. The Sturmis continue their success knocking out another stand of Pioneers but the rest of my shooting is ineffectual again.

The KV's push on towards the objective,
but not yet close enough to assault the Pioneers.

A successful roll for reserves sees two more Tigers arrive to support the Pioneers. Ben's sit and shoot pays dividends again knocking out two more KV's with his Panthers who fail their motivation roll and leave the field. His three Tigers shoot and bail two of the KV's.

The remains of my other KV platoon after the
Panthers have finished with them.

Things now look bleak for the Soviets

I manage to remount the two bailed KV's and decided to sit and shoot in the hope of taking out the Tigers before they finish me off. But again fail to damage them. Their return fire knocks out two KV's forcing a motivation check which I fail and its game over. A crushing 6-1 win to Ben and he gets his revenge.

As with our last game heavy tanks in cover proved too much for the attacker. Some smoke would have been handy but as that's not an option for Soviets I don't see what else I could have done besides roll better dice :-)

New Releases for Malifaux

Wyrd have finally announced their new releases for June. There's five new figures, some more Terraclips (due in August) terrain and a revised rulebook (due in July).

I'm a bit underwhelmed with the figure releases to be honest. The Dreamer is nice but the rest are decidedly average.

They've also announced some new Terraclips terrain due out in August. As usual it looks great in the pictures but the reality is usually different. I was going to buy one of the last sets as it was good value. But seeing in practise I thought it was fiddly and time consuming to put together. I also hated the look of the plastic tabs used to join everything together. But I know it sold well and this set looks like it could do well with role players given it's setting.

Lastly they've announced a new rulebook due out in July which I'm not too happy about as it's probably just going to include errata and clarifications and I can do with out the expense of replacing my current rulebook.

I don't play much Malifaux these days for some reason and I don't think these announcements are going to anything to change that in the near future.