Many Rivers Turn 3a Blitzkrieg!

 

Myself and Graham got together yesterday for our next turn in our Many Rivers to Cross Chain of Command campaign. It had been May since our last game so we were both a little rusty, I should note that this is the first time we used CoCV2 for this campaign, it seemed to meld easily with the OB and support information for the 1940 Germans and British from the Blitzkrieg Hand book. We had the game at Grahams.

Forces

Guards Platoon 2, FM 10 (fresh)

FR 0, 5CD, Regulars

Supports (18)

Barbed Wire 2

Minefields 2

2" Mortar

Pregame Barrage

Sniper Team

MMG Team

Infantry Section

Schützen Platoon 3 FM 9 (still fresh)

FR +1, 5CD, Regulars

Unchanged Supports (18)

Engineer Team

Shabby Nazi Trick (fifth columnist)

Red Dice

MG34 Tripod Mount

Pregame Bombardment

Extra Schützen Squad

IG18 IG

Patrol Phase

The JOPs are circled, not the best Patrol Phase for the Germans. Graham did a very nice table.

The Game

This was a challenging game, first because it was a Blitzkrieg, I felt it did not adhere to the rules for support generation in the campaign so we felt it best to go with the support generation as determined by the scenario rules for Swift to Support in the 1940 Handbook. I had the same supports as Turn 3 with 18, so the Brits got 18. This is a lot of supports for defence.

This was my base of fire on my left flank with a planned advance on my right. It looked pretty lethal with a 5cm Mortar, an IG18, a Schützen squad and a SL.

Graham put down an SL and a 2" Mortar in the farmyard compound. The SL had LOS so smoke started to come to block my base of fire. I have some questions about this as there did not seem much I could do about it. I will have to check with the TFL cognoscenti though as something did not seem right.

There is nothing like the effectiveness of the 2" British Mortar

Graham had deployed 3 of his sections as the game progressed, one on his right flank and 2 behind the fence in the farm compound. By now we had both deployed our MMGs in entrenchment. They were both destroyed by the end of the game but I was take to take out the Vickers first.

My advance squad did very poorly as you can see and ended up breaking on the next phase. 

I had deployed my last squad on the road, but by now it was too late and once the squad in the opened broke my FM dropped to 3 and I decided to withdraw. Luckily I had not lost many of my core platoon (5 figures) so the cost to the platoon was limited.

Summing Up

German Platoon #3 (Final FM 3)

Platoon Leader Outlook: Content

Men’s opinion: -3 (FM roll -1)

CO’s opinion: -2

German Platoon 3: 2 dead, 2 missing

German 1st Platoon has lost 5 dead 

German 2nd Platoon has lost 8 dead

British Platoon #2 (Final FM 8)

Platoon Leader Sociable: Affable (FM roll +1)

Men’s opinion: +1

CO’s opinion:  +1

1 missing next game

British Platoon 1 has lost 5 dead

I think I was really against it with the British having 18 supports in defence. I did set up a nice firing line to cover my advance but I could never get my advance moving along, I might of waited too long. I did kill quite a few Brits but the difference in the FM made an easy recovery for them.The good news is that I did not lose a lot of men and on the same table the British will have many fewer supports although there are quite a few fixed defences on the table. We will just have to see how it goes.

The Gifted- A Carnevale Faction

 

My friend Graham recently (well a couple of months ago) finished painting a new Carnevale faction for me. This figures were well beyond my painting ability and as you can see Graham has done a brilliant job. This is my 4th faction and although I play the game seldomly, they are all beautiful figures. 

The Mask Maker

Brighella

Harlequin

Il Dottore

Pantaleone

Il Capitano

Justice and Fate

Columbina

Elegoo Centauri Carbon-First Impressions

Elegoo Centauri Carbon 48 hour Review

On June 2, I purchased and put myself in the queue for the new Elegoo FDM printer. This will be my 5th 3D Printer purchase, and the 3rd FDM printer. My last 3D printer was SWX2, this was pretty good printer and I got 2 1/2 years out of it. I had heavily modified it as well klipperising it but I kept on screwing around with it and final blew the motherboard. Time to throw it out as it was a bed slinger and the new CoreXY machines allow much faster speeds.

The most noise I heard on the internet was about the BambuLabs PS1 and the Elegoo Centauri Carbon. I knew that the Bambu was a solid printer as 3 of my friends had one but the price was at least twice that of the Elegoo. There was a sale in June at BambuLabs where I could order one for even less than the Elegoo but when I had difficulty ordering it and when it finally went though they automatically added an extra charge of $80 on PayPal with out informing me which took me a month to get back. I think in the sale they oversold and this was a computer glitch but it made me a bit uncomfortable with their processes.

So back to the Elegoo, my first printer was a Creality and the experience was poor and I am not too sure about their approach to Klipper OS. I have had a Elegoo Mars Resin Printer for a while now and it just works. I watched probably 30+ reviews and they were quite good. I am not looking to use exotic materials, it will be almost exclusively PLA. I wanted a CoreXY machine which ran on a form of Orca Slicer. What most impressed me was the release process, they started the release about a year ago and each release was in small numbers so they could get feedback. This allowed them to proactively fix issues with each release. I suspect my machine in a gen5 as the light and camera are improved, the packing was reinforced, many adjustments have been made to the software and the added materials were all quite useful.

It arrived 2 days ago; it was unpacked there was no damage, I removed 3 screws, turned it on, ran the 30 minute start up protocol and printed a benchy (15 min) withe the enclosed PLA. I then printed a benchy with some old Sunlu matt PLA. Both perfect. I ordered some Elegoo PLA+ and the roll came Saturday afternoon. So I started the testing various STL’s. I am doing terrain mostly. So that is where I focussed. I started with a large flat floor, no release or elephant’s foot A+, next a peaked roof, A+. I next went to very small prints (15mm) with no brims; fences upright, barrels with about a 2mm build plate contact as well as some more scatter pieces, A+. Finally multiple small pieces on one plate. No loss of prints.

I have to admit to being pleased, but this only 36 hours so more to do. I will update  my experience after a month.

I see no defects, 15 minute print

I prefer Orca Slicer, but the Elegoo Slicer allows you to paint your own tree supports

1/100 scale, these are tiny, printed without supports or brims.

M3 Grant- A Bit of an Orphan Tank

 

I recently resin printed a M3 Grant AFV, I got the STL from a Canadian Vehicles kickstarter. I have to say that these were the best vehicle STLs I have received with supported and unsupported versions but also a hollowed version. I find hollowing vehicles a little challenging, so I was quite happy that this was already done.

Most of the vehicles in the kickstarter were trucks and it was an interesting collection but after some research not really a collection that was useful for wargaming. This was especially relevant to the M3 Grant which was primarily used for training purposes by Commonwealth armies except in North Africa where both the British and Australian armies used it for operational purposes.

I have to admit that I had not done this research before I painted the tank. So I will have to make it a training vehicle for the 2nd Canadian Armoured Division. 

But who knows it may end up being transferred to the Soviet Union where the M3 Grant did have operational history with a new livery.

Chain of Command Version 2

Two weeks ago, we had our June Gamesday on or about the second anniversary of the founding of our club. We initially put up 5 games but only 3 were subscribed fully. I put on a game of Chain of Command to illustrate the changes in version 2. We also had a game of Muskets and Tomahawks as well as a Pirate game of Port Royale. 

I actually ended up playing the Chain of Command game twice, first with my friend Pierre-Yves. We are both experienced CoC players and seemed to have little problem with the rules changes. The planned game had PY, Iannick, Julien and Jen-Philippe. Everyone had played before except JP who I believe was a novice to the game. He has played a lot of Battle Group but was quite interested in giving CoC a go.

I went with a terrain dense table using the Delaying Action scenario. This wa quite different than the same scenario in version 1. Here we have an objective to capture with a possibly a limited amount of time to capture it. Interestingly enough the defender can take no engineering works. I decided to replicate an action that the Canadian forces were involved in the follow up to D-Day.

Saint-Lambert-sur-Dive, August 18, 1944. During Operation Tractable, to close the Falaise Gap, elements of the 4th Canadian Armoured Division were ordered to attack and hold St Lambert to prevent elements of the German 7.Armee breaking out of the area in their retreat east. Our scenario will recreate the initial attack of a Canadian Rifle platoon on an entrenched German Grenadier platoon.

I used the forces from the CoC v2 rulebook with the said supports, the Attacking Canadians had 10 supports and the defending German 6. I will not bother to go into the specific action as I have forgotten it now but here are some photos.

I certainly enjoyed playing a game and games mastering the second game. This is a terrific re-vamping of a great set of rules. I personally found the mechanics basically the same and I cannot say the rules were more granular but there was a lot of chrome added. I am really looking forward to getting in my next game.

Saga Night-English vs the Flemish

 

Ten days ago we had our monthly night, this was well attended as usual with 6 tables set up, half being Age of Vikings and half being Age of Chivalry. I again brought my English and this time my opponent was Eric's Flemish. I had yet to play against Eric or the Flemish so it was going to be a novel experience for me.

English

3 Warrior Bowmen

1.5 Hearthguard Knights

1.5 Warriors

Flemish

2 Warrior Crossbowmen

4 Levy Pikes

We used the chaos method to set up the game.

Starting Position

Eric has beautifully painted figures

Bowmen to the centre

The final position, I won the game by killing the Flemish Warlord with my bowmen.

It was an interesting game, I am not sure if the Flemish have an inherent disadvantage  against the English. The Pikes are quite slow moving and the English can cause a lot of damage with their Bowmen at a distance.

Pulp Alley-The Tomb of Dagon

A couple of week ago myself and Luis got together to playa game of Pulp Alley. It had been awhile since I had played and I wanted to get in a game. Luis plays a lot and is a great teacher.

I was interested in playing something set in Innsmouth, I am surprised there are so few Lovecraft inspired scenarios for Pulp Alley. I have played Innsmouth Gold several times and there are some Cthulhu characters in the China Station campaign. After consultation on line, I got a couple of suggestions from this campaign booklet and decided to go with Tomb of Dagon, I had already played The Fog.

What I missed initially was that The Tomb was a Solo scenario! I had initially set up the below table trying to mirror the scenario but setting it on a street in Innsmouth.

Entry area in the left upper map with only Plot Point in right upper

I quickly realised though that this had only one Entry Point which was not going to work in a 2 player game. The table was changed around as illustrated below. 

We now have 2 Entry Points in the northeast and northwest areas on the table with the Plot Point (cemetary) in the centre. Essentially each league has to work there way through 3 areas with challenges, until they enter the centre at the bottom of the table and then fight their way back up the central street. 

Well it seemed to work, although 9 turns was not really enough. I would play the scenario again with some minor changes in respect to the challenger areas. The Deep Ones made several appearances and were quite a challenge especially the Elder! A couple of more photos.

Elder Deep One in action against Luis's league

My league also took quite a beating.

Thank you Luis for being a willing participant in this modified scenario.

Medieval Warriors

 

Here are the last 3 units I have painted for Saga, Age of Chivalry. there are 2 units of warriors with bills and one of a unit with spears. They are mostly painted in English livery but they are varied enough so they can be used in any warband.

That will be it for a while. I think I did pretty well for about 10 weeks of painting with the following units:

• Crossbowmen Levy (1 unit of 12)
• Bowmen Warriors (3 units of 8)
• Pikemen Warriors (3 units of 8)
• Foot Knights Hearthguard (3 units of 4)
• Mounted Knights Haerthguard (1 unit of 4)
• Mounted Warlord
• Foot Warlord
• Mercenary Knight

79 figuresin all !