Arc of Fire miniatures game

 Played a playtest round of Arc of Fire with the South Africans versus the Angolans in the eighties.

My South African forces.  90mm armed wheeled vehicles with light armor, 20mm armed autocannon ones, and a spotter truck.

The game table (lots and lots of trees!).

My South Africans (in blue) spot the Angolans and take out two T55 tanks straight away (lucky rolls).

Another T55 taken out and more spotted further back.

Lots of destroyed vehicles (mostly Angolans).  A few South African 90mm armed vehicles lost as well but lousy shooting (and crews) for the Angolans makes it a lopsided fight.

I forget what was happening here...

Angolan infantry being mopped up by South African infantry.  Almost all of the Angolan vehicles are destroyed.

End of game.  South African arty was chewing up the Angolan infantry till it tried to switch targets and then it just kept going way off target.

MBT Learning scenario 1

Played a learning scenario of MBT with Charles via Vassal.  Looking forward to more of this and Panzer as well.  A solid game system but when the shooting starts things get ugly quickly.

The setup.  The US at the top and the Soviets at the bottom.  The 4VP hexes (circled) are each worth roughly one tank loss.  So if one side takes them and the other does nothing that side wins.  Normally it boils down to whoever gets the most kills.

End of turn 1, both sides heading for the leftmost two VP hexes.

The US gets off the first shots (they won the initiative roll).  Next game I will suggest using the alternate Initiative procedure where you only activate a platoon at a time - it makes losing that first roll less catastrophic.  In this case 7 US tanks destroy 3 Soviet tanks before the Soviets get a chance to fire.  If I had noticed the LOS to the other Soviet tanks it would have been worse for them.

End of turn 2.  Like I said it is deadly once combat is joined.  The soviets take out 2 US tanks while the US Take out 2 move Soviets and damage a third.

Skipping to the end now.  Things broke the US way the next turn when they won initiative again.  At the end of turn 5 all of the Russian tanks are destroyed with the US losing 4.  

Looking forward to more of this game, adding in the advanced rules for tanks along with Infantry (and AT Missiles of course) which will also make spotting more important (in this one everyone spotted everyone once we were in range).

Lots of 6mm Miniatures painted.

Painted up and based a LOT of miniatures since January, I finally decided to write them up with this latest batch complete.  The minis are for gaming with Too Fat Lardies IABSM and IABNM rules along with Fistful of Tows and Fireball Forward.

First batch of pictures includes the following.  All are GHQ except the Cold War Russians which are Heroics and Ros.

Japanese
22 LMG
6 HMG
3 FO
2 large gun
4 small gun
3 knee mortar
9 grenade thrower
12 leader
21 riflemen
8 type 95 tank
4 type 97
2 truck

UK Desert
5 Humber scout

Afrika Korps
5 pzjgr1
5 sdkfz222
5 sdkfz231 8 rad

France WW2
5 H39

US WW2
4 trucks
1 sniper
1 BAR
3 bazooka teams
1 loader

1 soviet ATR WWII

Cold War Russian (these are Heroics and Ros)
3 mortar team
3 as missile team
5 sagger team, desert
4 sagger team Europe
6 at missile team
3 mg team
3 agl team
7 leader teams
12 RPG
4 squad stands
5 leaders
5 radio men
3 ft men
3 engineers
12 saw men
43 riflemen

The second Batch are WWII Russians I had done back in January but never took pictures of.

29 squad stands
21 heavy squad stands
17 lmg
31 mmg/hmg
45 riflemen
24 mortar team
12 ft team
15 FO  (GHQ has way too many of these in a pack)
25 leader  (these too)

I Ain't Been Nuked Mum Playtest at SJCW club meeting

Played another playtest round of IABNM at the club on Saturday.  There was only one other game this month, a game of Angriffe that ran after the IABNM game was finished, I had to miss out on that one so only one picture of that being setup.

For the IABNM game it was the same scenario as I played last time but the result was VERY different.

The board being setup, should look familiar.  This time I placed the woods close to the Soviet entry edge and left a larger open area.  The US forces would setup anywhere to the left of the cards you see on the table.  (roughly).

The playing card is a blind, further back (in the blurry picture, sorry!) is the Soviet pre-game smoke barrage.  On the right hand side the Soviets are charging right out in the open!  (they did not see the results of the last game!)

Hard to see from here but the Soviet blinds are spotted (as Phil looks on...) and the M1A1s make short work of a bunch of them (the M1A1s are in the town just beyond the bend in the river).  Further back a batch of M2 Bradleys opened fire with Missiles  and took out some more T80s as well, things are going very badly for the Soviets.

The rest of the Soviet force is spotted and fire erupts across the board in both directions.

End of the game (which only lasted for 3 rounds of cards).  Anti-Tank combat is VERY deadly.  All of the M1A1s were destroyed in two turns by 10 or so T80s while the M1A1s managed to kill 10 or so T80s in return.  A couple of M2 Bradleys were also destroyed.  For their loss the US managed to destroy two ZSU-23-4 vehicles, the Forward Soviet forward observer vehicle, and nine or so BMPs.  At this point I called the game for the US.

Scenes of devastation.  Three dead BMPs and shocked surivors, further up are the two ZSU-23-4s, another BMP and behind the woods three BMPS running for cover.  Further up from that is another platoon of BMPs, one of which was destroyed.

US losses are not so bad.  Up front an M2 Bradley is destroyed and another one (in the open) no longer has functioning armament and is shocked.  Back in the woods another M2 is down.  The last bit of woods has a group of M901 tow vehicles.  Arty was going to be brought down on them but the spotter was destroyed before it could be brought in.

The Soviets charged down the road in the open which allowed them to be spotted by the US dummy blinds (all of them spotted in one turn pretty much).  After that the real US units had a turkey shoot.  Armored combat in this game is very deadly and quick (no buckets of dice) so getting spotted and fired on is usually decisive.  For my next game I will have to try a mostly infantry affair in tighter terrain - using inches for measurement rather than CM as was done for these past two games (for seeing how missile combat worked out - it is deadly but tank guns are deadlier).

I Ain't Been Nuked Mum!

Played a playtest of IABNM again yesterday.  Soviets attacking a US position circa 1989.  I am planning to run a similar scenario (with modifications based on this run through) at the SJCW group meeting on May 9th.

Soviet Forces are attacking to seize 2 of 3 bridges across some river.  Lots of tanks and a group of BMP infantry vs 2 platoons of Americans in M2 Bradleys, an M901 AT Company, and a platoon of M1A1s.  It was a slaughter...

Prepare for Battle!  The table setup 4' by 8' and we will be using CM for measurements.  The US will setup on the far side and have to stop the Soviet steamroller.

A little closer in with the blinds in place (I use playing cards as blinds.  This is the center of the US defense.

A pre-game arty attack puts a hurting on the US right flank!  (I could not find the word stonk and used a regular barrage rather than the IABNM stonk rules - found the correct rules today and will be using them in the game on the 9th).  Black squares are "built up" areas of hard cover, buildings are simply for show.  The 4 M2s have suffered a loss of action (orange) and most are shocked (white).  

A T80 Company (I used a single card per T80 company, need to make more cards) destroyed two M2 Bradleys after passing by the woods.  M2s try to fire back on their card - OOOPS, no firing Wire Guided missiles over water!  (first change for the game on the 9th noted.).  One of the remaing M2s dashes for the bridge to shoot across it with the ITOW (can not shoot and move so has to hope he lives)

Soviets move up in the center, US Blinds card did not come up for 4 straight decks allowing the Soviets to move up without being spotted.

The US Blinds finally appear and the M1A1 platoon opens fire!  They destroy 3 T80s on the right flank including one on the bridge - see the picture 2 down from here.

T80s in the center (another Company) activate and destroy two of the M1A1s.  The last two manage to fire a bit longer.  The T80s also managed to destroy two of the M2s from the HQ platoon (City on the left).  At this point we called the game.

The remains of the US right flank.  The Infantry were pummeled by the T80s firing HE and only one Bradley was left alive.  Changes for the next game are to move the river further back and have the US allowed to setup on either side, to put the off board AT missile card in the deck right away (was waiting for the HQ to unmask and call it in), and allow the soviets to start in a woods line rather than come in from off table - this will allow the action to start a little sooner and allow the Soviet arty into the game along with the US missile strikes from off-board Apaches.  

The IABNM rules will be published by Too Fat Lardies and are currently in Playtest.  I can't say for sure when they will be done but they are very far along now.

GHQ vs H&R size comparison pics.

A few size comparison pics between GHQ and H&R.

The infantry are harder to tell from the picture but the GHQ figs are roughly a head taller then the H&R.  The Shermans are Israeli Ishermans with the 105mm guns (Shermans and 105mm - Gotta love it!)

The scale difference between GHQ and H&R T80s are more pronounced but I did not have them available for a picture.

Cold War UK 6mm figs

As threatened I finished up my 6mm Cold War UK figs today.  All the troops I should ever need for fielding the UK.  I now have to focus on adding more vehicles since I only have a handful of tanks and APCs for them.

The counts are
87   Riflemen (3 per stand)
13   LMG
8     Anti-Tank  (Milan)
23   Command  (one stand missing a radio guy who fell on the floor never to be seen again)
13   MTR
8    Stinger
7    FO
36  Individual Riflemen