German Platoon

German platoon for wormingrad.

That's probably it till after Christmas, I just don't have the free time these days.  I'll potter away at terrain next, slowly but steadily hopefully.

Panzer III

I converted and painted my Panzer IIIs for Wormingrad, using the Armourfast Pz IIIJ model.

This has to be the worst model kit I have ever purchased, some major parts on the sprue don't match the assembly diagram and can not be fitted together without altering the pieces.  How it ever got passed for sale I can't imagine.

Still, I'm happy with how they turned out, that's probably all my Wormingrad vehicles done now, unless I decide to expand the scope of the game.

Soviet SMG Platoon

First platoon completed, Soviet SMG infantry.

Three platoons of 1 LMG 3SMG and an SMG armed leader.

The leader is just an SMG worm with shoulder insigina added with greenstuff.

Once I get my first German platoon completed I should be able to try some small games to test my rules.

Russian Tanks For Wormingrad

A couple of Russian tanks for Wormingrad, again Armourfast models, this time their T34.

Not perfect, but they do the job.

The German figures have one each of rifle, SMG, LMG and panzerfaust, the Russians have two rifle poses and two SMG poses.  No LMG, so I use this rifle pose to make LMGs.

A bit of greenstuff on the end of the barrel and a drum magazine, and we have a Russian LMG.

And now I have the basic unit of the game, the rifle squad.  Three rifles and one LMG for the Russians.

Two rifles, an SMG and an LMG for the Germans.

Three squads plus a leader will be a platoon.  Three platoons plus an HQ squad will be a company.  Battalion organisation can wait till I get more figures sorted and see what I can make in terms of heavy weapons.

More Units For Lion Rampant

A mix bag of units for Lion Rampant, mostly rebasing but some new figures painted too.

Dismounted Men-at-arms for one of my mid medieval retinues.

Foot Serjeants or Yeomen to go with the previous unit.

Dismounted Men-at-arms, willing to serve in whichever retinue pays the best.

Some revolting peasants.

These guys are brigands in the Holy Land, they'll fight Crusaders and Saracens to get as much loot as they can.

Caesarian Romans with auxiliaries.

And finally some ancient Britons.

Flammenwormfer

I've set myself a challenge to do at least one item for Wormingrad each week, to be posted on Sundays.

This week I converted a German worm with panzerfaust into one with a flamethrower.

The flame is made from foliage clumps on a piece of brass rod.

Painting foliage clumps is annoying, not helped by how long it took for each coat to dry.

I'm glad I didn't give up though, I really like the look of it.

I'll need to do some markers to show squares that are burning.

The figure was really easy to do, I just cut the head off the panzerfaust then using green stuff added a cylinder with dial and a short hose to connect that to the remains of the panzerfaust.

I suspect the dial is completely unrealistic, but I felt it felt a bit plain without it.

I need to decide on unit sizes for the game, that will determine how many more of these I'll need   (Units are going to be squads or platoons and unit size has to be somewhere between four and eight worms per unit).

First Wormingrad Vehicles.

I took the plunge and bought a box of Armourfast vehicles to convert for Wormingrad.  I was wanting to try StuGIIIs first as I figured they'd be the easiest, not having turrets. My local model shop didn't have those, but did have StuH42s which for my purposes are essentially the same as the StuGs.

All I did was cut two road wheels off the track sections and the same length off the hull top and base.

I used some of the cupola pieces to make a larger hatch to fit a worm through it.

The worm sticking out of the hatch is from the SMG figure, hacked up a bit and new arms added with Greenstuff.

The second one is buttoned up, I don't have an unlimited number of figures to play with and I doubt I'll find another load going cheap at a bring and buy any time soon.

The vehicles were both filled with Plasticine during assembly, gives them a nice weight when you handle them.

A surprisingly easy conversion, time to save my pennies for some PZIIIs and T34s. 😃

Wormingrad

I found an abandoned project while searching through a cupboard for something else, thought it might be nice to share it.  Who knows, it may even inspire me to complete it to the point where I can play a game.

I can't remember who made the figures, and Google hasn't helped me remember, but I have a load of them unpainted.

This is everything I completed before I got distracted on to something else.  The squares are 4".

I have Soviet worms with SMGs too, just never painted any.

The Germans have Rifle and SMG, there is also a Panzerfaust figure which I intended to modify into crew figures for anti tank guns.  Because Panzerfausts in Wormingrad would be totally unrealistic, they didn't have them in 1942...

I seem to recall getting stuck deciding what to do about vehicles, I wanted PzIIIs, StugIIIs and T34s.  That's probably why it got set aside as a project.  One to return to do you think?

Viking Longhouse

My Grandson phoned me yesterday and asked me if I could make him a model Viking longhouse for him to take to school.  Delivery required by tomorrow, so it was a bit of a rush job, but I'm kind of pleased with the outcome.

The roof isn't a perfect fit, but he needed it to be removable.  The figure is a spare 15mm Viking I had lying around.

His requirements for the interior were a room divider with a bed behind it, a seat for the Jarl, benches down each side, one with blankets, and a fire.  And a hole in the roof for the smoke.

It's made from mounting board and matchsticks with teddy bear fur for the thatching.  I did consider painting then drybrushing the thatch to make it lie better and improve the colour but decided against it as I have no idea if it would have dried in time.

The scale of the interior items feels slightly off to me, the benches and fireplace should probably be slightly smaller.  The fit of the roof was slightly compromised by the rafters, I didn't allow for that when constructing it but I wasn't going to go back and change it.

The building is roughly 2" by 5" and it's on a 5" by 7" piece of 3mm MDF.

I hope he likes it. 😊

Neil Thomas's American Civil War

Today I played my first game using the ACW rules in Wargaming: An Introduction.  Whilst having a lot in common with most of his other rules these rules add some concepts I don't think I've seen elsewhere in his work, and it gives the game it's unique flavour.

Firstly, infantry and cavalry are rated as either Elite, Average or Militia for morale purposes.  The clever thing is, you can play that you don't know what they are till the first time they have to make a morale check.  The quality is determined by rolling on tables split by Union or Confederate, Infantry or Cavalry, and Early, Mid or Late war.

The next change from his usual practice is what happens when you fail a morale check.  Usually this causes a base loss in his rules, here it only causes a retreat unless such a retreat would take the unit off the table, in which case it loses a base.

And finally, units can try to rally to recover bases if they start the turn with no enemy in position to fire on them.  Higher quality units have more chance of rallying.

The net effect of these rules makes for a game very different from his usual ones.

I decided to start at the beginning, with an early war battle.  Army lists are fixed for each period of the war, though the Union has the choice to have it's artillery equipped with smoothbore or rifled artillery.  I opted for all smoothbore.

Initial deployment.  The Union have gone for two lines of infantry with the cavalry on the right flank.  The less numerous Confederates are in a single line with both their cavalry on the right too.

The Union advances and it's artillery score first blood on the infantry opposite them.

The Rebs advance too, their artillery moving into a firing position on the hill.

Another hit scored by the Union infantry, and I discover units move at half speed in fields.  I should really check that kind of thing before I deploy the armies, shouldn't I?  

The Confederate artillery gets into action and their left sweeps forward.  On their right a unit of cavalry moves forward and dismounts.

The closest infantry are now in firing range and open up.  Units either move or fire in a turn, not both.  The right flank keeps moving forward.

Having sown the wind the Union infantry unit reaps the whirlwind. It loses a base and has to take a morale check.  It turns out to be of average quality and fails the test, falling back a full move, passing through the unit behind it.

The Union unit finding itself in the front line now advances into range, with the cavalry moving up beside it.  On the left infantry open fire on the dismounted cavalry.

The Rebs cause a base loss to the unit that moved into range.  It is militia quality, fails it's morale and falls back,  On the other flank the dismounted cavalry open fire.

The Union cavalry tries to charge but fails it's morale test to do so (Militia).  The dismounted Confederate cavalry loses a base to fire but is elite and passes it's morale test.

The dismounted cavalry cause a base loss, it turns out they are milita quality and fall back.

Confederate units fall back under the weight of fire they face.  The Union cavalry again fails to charge.

Confederate cavalry moves up ready to charge and the dismounted unit rallies a base back.  The Union cavalry is milita and falls back after taking a loss.

The Confederate cavalry lose a base.  They are elite, but fail their morale anyway.

The infantry who moved up beside them are forced back too (Average).

The Confederates push forward again.

This time fire fails to force them back.

The cavalry charge in, losing a base to defensive fire.

They lose the melee too and fall back, only one base surviving.  A Union militia unit in the middle retreats.

The cavalry unit loses it's last stand to fire, and on the other flank units are worn down.

The other cavalry unit moves up to see if it can be more successful.

The Confederate line is looking terribly thin.

Another charge, another base lost to defensive fire.

But this time the cavalry wins the melee.

The cavalry is almost destroyed by the unit revealed by the retreat, and falls back.

The cavalry withdraws to rally.

The last full strength Confederate unit loses a base, and it's game over as the Confederates withdraw from the field of battle.

I'm glad I chose an early war battle, as having no idea what the best tactics would be seems most appropriate for this period. 😛

Depth of formation seems important, having a second line as backup really seems to be an advantage.  Even elite units will fail their morale check half the time, milita only pass on a roll of 6, so that second line will be used.

Cavalry is a problem, dismounted they have half the range of infantry, mounted they will take fire moving into range and then again for defensive fire.  I should have probably kept them both mounted and had them move up together rather than go in piecemeal. 

Artillery is effective but not over powerful, it's more a gradual attrition.

I enjoyed the game, I think it would be even better with larger armies (though maybe the same number of cavalry units because I don't have a clue how to use them!).