20mm SS in Normandy

First two squads and a platoon command for Battlegroup Overlord. Figures are a mix of Wartime, Battlefield/Blitz, Elhiem, and AB Figures.

The pea dot and autumn oak leaf were some nice changes from the summer oak leaf I'd done for the previous SS infantry platoons I'd painted.

~iPaint

Historicon 2015 Battlegroup Demo Recap

I ran 4 or 5 demo games of Battlegroup Kursk at Historicon this year. I think everyone had a good time, and picked up on the rules fairly quickly.

Here's some pics!

Saturday night's demo had a smaller set of tables, so I was forced to improvise and setup a bit smaller engagement.

~iPaint

Some recent work

First up, some painted Zombicide minis.

Zombies....lots of zombies

Dakota and Zombivor Dakota

Next up, some Reaper Bones rats.

Insert rat pun here

Finally, some 20mm WW2 love. SS PaK 40s and some T-34s.

Italeri PaK 40s and AB Figures crews

Plastic Soldier Company T-34s and AB Figures and Battlefield crew

~iPaint

Tiger I - Kursk, 1943

As part of an Easter build over at the Guild:

Revell Tiger I and a Battlefield commander.

~iPaint

Some WIP and Finished Models

Made some progress recently - finished up some American infantry and German SS infantry platoons.

AB Figures American Infantry Platoon and support

AB Figures, Battlefield, and Elhiem German SS Platoon and support

Also started in on some PaK 40 anti-tank guns from Italeri. These have been modified to move the forward armor plate back closer to the gun mantlet.

Italeri PaK 40s

And last but not least, some more T-34s from Plastic Soldier Company.

Plastic Soldier Company T-34s, a total of seven are paint in progress right now.

~iPaint

Zombicide Brad and Angry Mary

Painted up Brad and Angry Mary from Zombicide recently. Bases are 1.5mm-thick 25mm round LITKO clear acrylics.

Brad and zombivor

Angry Mary and zombivor

Major legwork was done using basecoat, minor highlights, and then Army Painter Strong Tone dip, with bits and pieces touched up like skin, bandana and tie, and gore effects afterwards.

~iPaint

Battlegroup Kursk Game at GenghisCon 2015

Just had a quick set up and demo game with 2 platoons of infantry a side, some tanks and tank riders, and a sniper for the Germans. Goal was to show off the rules to some of the local club members. Lots of pinning all around, and several bloodied squads near the center of the table.

I'll just post the pics since there's really not a whole lot to go off of for the AAR. I think the Russians had 15 BR and the Germans 9 BR in morale chits by the time we called it too late to continue playing.

Pics:

Soviet infantry advances towards the middle of the village...

and the cover of the nearby railway embankment.

While the Germans follow suit:

Panzer IVs arrive to knock out a T-34 on the German left flank, causing the tank riders to scatter and be cut down by the nearby MG34 teams.

T-34s push up on the Russian left flank.

Soviet forward headquarters arrives to survey the carnage.

End of game positions. I think we made it through 4 turns in about an hour of play. Was just too late to get any more in.

It's a good bet I'll be setting about making up some templates for QRS, vehicle data cards, and movement measuring sticks to speed things along. The movement trays really helped improve the process of moving all that infantry.

Still thinking about good intro game sized forces, and what rules to really highlight and which to leave out for sake of speed/ease of learning to play. I think for demo games, keeping track of ammo could be dropped to allow people to roll more dice in combat, and I think trimming the morale chits a bit will allow for some less-painful counters being pulled. Still not sure on how much artillery to introduce, maybe just offboard mortars.

I think these are great rules, but for intro games I like to get everyone rolling dice and using orders to get a feel for how the mechanics flow, while hinting that rules exist for the more in-depth things you can do (charging bunkers with demo charges was brought up, as well as medics running about on the beaches during D-Day).

The Germans made particularly good use of Ambush Fire with their sniper, preventing a few Russian squads from shooting back in return. The Russians learned quickly that burning T-34s aren't the best place for their tank riders to hang around. Everyone was picking up on the Area-Fire-then-Aimed-Fire techniques for pinning infantry, then causing wounds and morale checks.

By the end of the night, everyone was fairly familiar with the basics of the rules for moving, shooting, morale, and order management, and I was mostly keeping track of remaining orders and helping measure. Fun times, but I need to get some more terrain done up - notably fences and some more details on my train tracks.

Lots of passers-by commented on liking the 20mm scale.

First Minis for 2015

2015 is here, and the first minis have been painted! This is the first squad of Germans for my Stalingrad project.

Battlefield/Blitz and WarTime Miniatures. Greenstuff helmet covers and some extra bits and pieces.

~iPaint