All American-Turn 5

After 4th turn

German Platoon: Unlimited platoons so not tracked

American Platoon 1: 3 dead.
American Platoon 2: 6 dead, 4 wounded (1 SL 6"CR w/2CI) 
American Platoon 3: intact

We got our 5th game in last Friday night. We again played on table 3, probably the toughest table for the German attackers. I had won the last game so I knew that Pierre Yves was determined to win. For the Germans to win they have to capture table 4 in 7 campaign turns. I decided to go with my 2nd platoon, the Germans have a fresh platoon each turn. I was +1 on supports and P-Y was +1 on the FM roll.

Setup

82nd Airborne 3 Platoon (FM 9)

Core (Elite 5+1)

SLx2 (carbine and SMG)
Bazooka Team

Squads 1 (JL/SMG, M1919 LMG Team/3 crew, Rifle Team/8 men)
Squads 2 (JL/SMG, M1919 LMG Team/3 crew, Rifle Team/5 men)

Supports (7)
Adjutant
MMG Team
2 Entrenchments

Grenadier Platoon (FM 10)

Core (Regular 5)

SL/SMG
Panzerschreck Team 

Squads x 3 (JL/SMG, LMG Team/3Crew, Rifle Team/6 men)
Supports (13) 
Hotchkiss H35
Renault R35
FO w/ 8cm OTM
Wild Card-Armoured Fist-Panzer IIIG

Game

I think P-Y won the Patrol Phase as you can see from the below JOP placements.

American JOP's

German JOP's, the one on their left flank looks ominous!

I ambushed the PzIII from behind and missed!

An inventive method to lay down a barrage.

I got the PzIII but played it wrong forgetting that there should be no infantry within 6"

So what happened. The Germans started their advance with 2 AFV's with 2 infantry squads  following them, They swung  the 3rd squad off to their left flank, crossing the flooded fields. They then laid down their barrage. To counter this I placed 1 squad behind the above stone wall with their 5cm mortar team and a SL. I had placed squad 2 in the house ready to strafe the road if the Germans got over the bridge. At the same time I accumulated CoC die in order to ambush the AFV's thus blocking the bridge. I was able to cause considerable damage on the 2 German squads behind the tanks with very little resulting damage to myself. I got the German FM down to 5 while I was still at 8. I think I had killed 5-6 Germans without any loss to myself. By now however the barrage was creeping to the German right. My men in the house started to take some hits, but no damage. The Germans were very close to taking my right flank JOP. As you can see the barrage was about to come down on my troops in the open. I felt the table was lost, but I was in a good position for the post game process so I withdrew. A German victory, on to table 4.

Post-game Campaign Process

After 5th turn

German Platoon: Unlimited platoons so not tracked

American Platoon 1: 3 dead.
American Platoon 2: 6 dead, 4 wounded (1 SL 6"CR w/2CI) 
American Platoon 3: intact

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Commander's Opinion +3 (+1 Support)

Men's Opinion -1

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Sociable (+1FM)

Americans

Commander's Opinion +5 (+1 Support)

Men's Opinion 0

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Thoughtful

A well earned German victory. On to table 4, it is going to be tricky. I have to win both games, we have both used our best Wild Cards. There is minimal support for each side on table 4. We are both +1 on support rolls.  Thankfully, I will have 2 largely intact platoons. Let us hope for the best. We should be able to get both games (if indeed there are 2) in within the next 3 weeks as I am in Montreal on the 3rd week of November.

SAGA-AoC-Subjugation

 

Had another game of SAGA set in the Age of Crusades a L'Abyss last Saturday in Montreal. My opponent was again Luis F. This time he played the Spanish BB while I played the Moors. These are both shooting factions which benefit from being mounted. We again decided to go with the Book of Battles. Luis had printed out the downloadble card set from the Studio Tomahawk forum, so we randomily picked a card from each of the 5 criteria. This turned out to be a bit of a challenge as the cards where in French in which I am extremely limited and while Luis's English is very good a lot of the words used were quite technical so somewhat difficult for him to translate into English. After a bit of back and forth though we came up with the below setup.

Game Set-up (BoB Chaos)

Scenery-Bleak Moor

Deployment-Vanguard

Special Rule-Forced March

Victory Conditions-Subjugation

Game Length-Pitched Battle

The Spanish (6 SAGA Dice)

Mounted Warlord
2 units of Mounted Hearthguard
1 unit of javelin armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of javelin armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of javelin armed Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Levy

Moors (7 SAGA Dice)

Mounted Hero (2)
The Black Guard (2)
1 unit of javelin armed Mounted Hearthguard
1 unit of  javelin armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Levy

Some photos:

Luis has that determined look!

A double ronged attack by my Warriors and Hearthguard

Quite a bit of attrition, with about equal losses on both sides. Unfortunately I exposed my Hero Warlord who ended up being exhausted going into my last turn. He did not die but he was of little utility in the turn.

Nothing like seeing my Levy being crushed by a double sized unit of Spanish Hearthguard.

It is interesting that both our games have been limited to 5 turns with the first 2 turns having movement limited to short. I was the first player in this game which is a bit of a disadvantage I think as Luis had the last move. The fact that most of our troops were mounted made the last 2 turns particularily bloody as we had muliple melees. I thought I was done for after I finished my 5th turn but as it turned out it ended up being a 18-18 tie! 

Another really enjoyable game with Luis who is great to game with, I will be back in Montreal in 3 weeks so I hope to get in another game then.

L'Abyss is a good gaming space. Has a lot of Fantasy figures, as well as a lot of Warlord and GW product. Well supplied with modelling and painting supplies.

As you can see there are plenty of tables and a great selection of boards, mats and terrain for the players to utilize. There was a large Age of Sigmar tournament going on Saturday but I took the photo during the break.

And They Say that 3D Printing is not for the Faint Hearted!

 

A couple of weeks ago, I recieved my first 3D Printer. I had been thinking about a purchase for some time. I am mostly interested in printing terrain and some AFV's. I was particularly unhappy with getting buildings for 20 mm wargaming which were all over the scale map. Italeri and 4-Ground are nice buildings but I find them a little overscale. I think the 20mm Sarissa Precision are a perfect size, and they are priced right but I have found MDF buildings a little brittle for transporting around. I hvae recently been gaming in Montreal with P-Y who has a lot of great looking 28mm 3D printed terrain. This does seem the ideal solution, you can tweak the size and then print out a perfect scaled building.

So what to get; the big boys seem all in for Prusa printers but I have to say the Lair of the Uber Geek's description of taking 2 days to assemble one sort of put me off (sorry Miles). I am just too impatient for screwing around with stuff. One of my colleagues at work got a Creality 10S and he had actually a very easy time of it and it was half the price. I got him to print an ACW building for me and it was just perfect so I went ahead and purchased it on Amazon. 

Two days later a big box arrived and there it was. Really beautifully packed. I found an excellent assembly video on line and I would say I had it up and running in 2 hours. It came with a small spool of white PLA and before I knew it I had printed my first building. It really came out perfectly, wow I said this is great!

I had bought a couple of STL file packets from Najewitz Modellbau, one of their Normandy packs annd an ACW pack so I had a lot to go on with. These are really excellent files and the first Normandy building I printed was perfectly in scale with my Sarrisa models without any tweaking so I was quite happy................but I had run out of PLA.

I wanted a grey PLA but when I went to order some on Amazon I saw some nice brown PLA and I thought this would be a great starting colour for wooden buildings so I ordered a roll. The usual Amazon excellent service delivered the package the next day so I loaded it up and started the printer. I have to admit that I did notice it felt a little different than the white PLA but I am a complete novice who as I have just previously described as being impatient.

Well something seemed to be wrong, things would print but I had a lot of problems with adhesion to the build plate and the models appeared to grow hair. I would set up a print and the next morning I would find the printer stopped with the building only half done. WTF!

I had a closer look and discovered that I had acually bought a combo wood particle-PLA product. Pulled it out and ordered another reel of rea PLA. It would print but I was still having a lot of problems. I leveled and releveled, tried different adhesives, figured out how to change bed and nozzle temperatures, found out about temperature towers.......nothing seemed to work. I was now becoming increasingly frustrated. This went on for a couple of days, what to do?

It was now starting to dawn on me that the problem appeared to be that the stuff was just not coming out right. I could improve things by changing temperatures or slowing the build rate but it just did not seem right. Maybe the nozzle was screwed up? I had another search on the internet, found that it was really a piece a cake to change out a nozzle and amazingly enough the printer had come with an extra nozzle. 

I pulled out the old nozzle and it was completely bunged up, I could not even clean it, how it was extruding any PLA at all was amazing. I changed out the nozzle, loaded some PLA into the extruder and I have now gone through a 1.5kg of PLA in a week with the printer going 24 hours a day pumping out perfect models.

Well I have learned a lot in the last couple of weeks. I discovered that when using wood/PLA combinations you need to use a larger nozzle than the 0.4mm one that is standard. I learned that a glue stick is the best adhesive and once applied 3-4 times you are all done for several prints.

I think I have printed out maybe 6-8 buildings without any problems, the scale is great for 20mm wargaming and they match well what I have. They are all in various stages of being painted and I will post some photos soon.

So I am quite happy with my Creality 10S, it is an excellent device, it is easy to keep going once you do a bit of research, the Crusa Slicer software is quite intuative. I have printed my first building at a lower resolution as I was anxious to see what it could do. I will now starting printing at better resolutions as I believe I now understand the whole process much better.Maybe time to print some tanks.

For Sale: 1/72 Scale Italeri and 4-Ground Buildings

These buildings have become surplus to need, so time to get rid. They have seen many a battle and show some wear but are in very good shape.

4-Ground-5 Buildings-1/72 Scale-New Retail $185

Italeri-1/72 Scale-Hand Painted-5 Buildings-$130 Retail

So, I will let them go for $150, Paypal only. Shipping not included (But will ship as cheap as possible, this will be a large box). US only!

All American-Turn 4

Last Saturday, we played our 4th game in our All American campaign at Pierre-Yves in Lachine. P-Y had won the last 2 games, so I had to be on my toes for this one. This was scenario 3 from the campaign booklet where the Germans have to attack across a causeway into the outskirts of La Fière. This is played as the Attack on an Objective scenario from the main rulebook. There were some special rules, the Americans get a free ambush point underneath the bridge crossing the river and start with a loaded CoC die. It did look pretty tough for the Germans. As you can see from the photos below, P-Y laid out an absolutely stunning terrain.

After 3 turns

German Platoon: Unlimited platoons so not tracked

American Platoon 1: 3 dead.
American Platoon 2: 6 dead, 4 wounded, SL1 6"CR, 2CI
American Platoon 3: Intact

Setup

82nd Airborne 3 Platoon (FM 11)

Core (Elite 5+1)

SLx2 (carbine and SMG)
Bazooka Team

Squads x 2 (JL/SMG, M1919 LMG Team/3 crew, Rifle Team/8 men)

Supports (6)
MMG Team
2 Entrenchments
Wild Card: Heavy Hitter (M1 ATG)

Grenadier Platoon (FM 10)

Core (Regular 5)

SL/SMG
Panzerschreck Team 

Squads x 3 (JL/SMG, LMG Team/3Crew, Rifle Team/6 men)
Supports (13) 
Panzer IIIG
Renault R35
FO w/ 8cm OTM

Germans are attacking from left

German Approach

P-Y constructed this bridge-terrific job

American Side

Patrol Phase and JOP's

We used 3 Patrol Markers each, P-Y only got 2 free moves

German JOP's

America JOP's, the 4th is in the house to the bottom right

Game

As usual I forgot to take photos, I had thought I had taken more but all I could find was 3. It was a pretty even game in respect to double phases and luck with the dice. I think the Germans have a quite a tough time of it is in this game. P-y's plan was a good one. He had taken a off-table mortar which he quickly laid down just on the American side of the bridge. Before that he had put one squad in the road on overwatch with the FO as well as the Renault tanklet. I could not resist putting down my MMG team on my left flank behind a stone wall in heavy cover, they were at close range and firing 10d6. I did cause a couple of kills but the overwatch fire back was devastating as I had 3 men killed and I ended up pinned. Down came the Mortar Barrage and they broke. One FM point down! More below.....

The unlucky or maybe foolhardy MMG team....

.....who broke

I will continue the story here. P-Y placed 2 squads on the road with a plan to advance. I decided to wait until I got a good chance to end the Barrage, I did start with a CoC dice and was able to fairly quickly get a 2nd one but not before the Germans had acquired one. P-Y had laid down the barrage to the right of the road on the far side of the river. This allowed me to put a LMG team in an entrenchment on the road with the rifle team behind the hedge. I was also able to put down a SL and the 60mm Mortar team on my right flank next to the rifle team. Timing was everything here as I had to get the Mortar lifted before it could start to creep to the German left. I got my 2nd CoC dice and then got a double phase. I ended the barrage, P-Y kept it going but on the next phase I ended the turn and caught the German squad at close range. They broke falling back and at the same time interpenetrated the squad behind them causing 6 shock. The Germans gamely fought back but by now their FM was down to 4. It was clear that their attack had failed and they withdrew.

Post-game Campaign Process

After 4th turn

German Platoon: Unlimited platoons so not tracked

American Platoon 1: 3 dead.
American Platoon 2: 6 dead, 4 wounded (1 SL 6"CR w/2CI) 
American Platoon 3: intact

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Commander's Opinion +1 

Men's Opinion 0

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Sociable (+1FM)

Americans

Commander's Opinion +4 (+1 Support)

Men's Opinion -2

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Content

It was a good game, we are playing turn 5 on the 25th of October (need to get out of Salem for Halloween  it is getting crazy here). I am curious to see what P-Y's plan is for his 2nd assault attempt.