Here are some photos of a solo battle I played through this afternoon. I chose the One Hour Wargames Scenario 7: Flank Attack (2) to see how the WW2 rules play out and see if they needed any modifications.
The setting is Northern France, summer 1940. The Red forces holding the objective, the main hill, would be the plucky lads of the BEF. The attacking Blue forces in the scenario were my early war Germans. The Wermacht would attack from front and flank in an attempt to capture the hill and strike a blow to the British rearguard. The Brits had to hold the hill at all costs.
The German forces consisted of three infantry units, a Pak 36 anti-tank gun, and two tanks, a Panzer IV and a Czech 38t.
The British had four infantry units, a 2-Pounder anti-tank gun and a 25lb-er gun howitzer.
To summarise the action, the main German thrust was on the British left flank, whilst the German anti tank and one infantry unit demonstrated against the BEF centre. The BEF lads soon noticed the typical shabby Nazi trick and redeployed to counter it. The German infantry attack stuttered a little at first, leaving their tanks to drive deep behind the hill. However, despite the Panzers' speed and firepower they could not consolidate their gains without their accompanying infantry. When the German foot soldiers did advance, the British artillery piece was ready for them and the 25lb shells carved bloody holes in their ranks. The British 2-pounder anti-tank fire from the hill had mixed success, but with assistance from heroic neighbouring infantry, the German panzers were defeated.
Towards the end of the battle, with only a anti-tank gun for support the German infantry pushed hard up the hill, but with poor dice rolls and artillery hammering them, they were ultimately defeated. In the One Hour Wargames rules, anti-tank guns are rather redundant if the enemy has no armour on the table, so the Germans had one sixth of their force at an immediate disadvantage. In contrast, the British artillery piece did sterling work and survived the battle with only one point of health remaining. Unsurprisingly my Zvezda British medic team had lots to do! The last remaining British infantry unit, comparatively untouched on 9 points of health out of 15, had managed to stay out of trouble during the early stages and thereby formed a good "meatshield" protecting the howitzer.
Overall a tense battle, again showing that anything outside of cover and within line of sight doesn't last very long on a Second World War battlefield! It's also a good idea to attack with all of your units simultaneously, and if you lack artillery support, throw your men forward as soon as possible!
The only thing I would improve for next time is to include a bit more battlefield clutter and light cover for this wargaming period, as artillery vs infantry engagements are absolutely brutal!
The last couple of photos show the British commander raising his hand in appreciation to his men, and the knocked out Panzers behind the hill.
Below are a few photos of my second Panzer III for my Afrika Korps force. Originally I intended this Panzer to be in early war grey but as I packed on the stowage on the rear of the tank, I changed my mind! The machine gunner on the turret is from the Plastic Soldier Company German Alte Halftracks set. The paint scheme is my standard Afrika Korps mix of Games Workshop paints - a Tallarn Sand undercoat dry brushed with Ushabti Bone and inked with Nuln Oil. At the moment I am using decals in a representative way - I don't think the German crosses were actually applied to the turret roof or hull front in reality, but I'm happy with the end product.
I've now finished two of the three vehicles from my box of Plastic Soldier Company German medium trucks.
I was going to give my late war Opel Blitz some camouflage but in the end I decided against it. The generic dark yellow gives it great versatility for any mid to late war battlefield in Italy, the Eastern Front or Western Europe.
The grey early war truck was loaded with German tank accessories stowage items and a barrel from Renedra (a company from whom I buy all of my wargaming bases, mostly 10cm by 5cm rectangular ones). I went a little overboard with the mud and weathering (a nasty habit) but overall I'm still happy with it. After all, my main wargaming mat in Bristol depicts a muddy field.
Almost straight after finishing the trucks I put together my third early war Panzer III Ausf G. Whilst I will be painting the tank in a standard early war grey colour scheme, I have placed a lot of stowage on the rear and turret to jazz things up a little. I'm also making use of a spare German machine gunner from a Plastic Soldier Company halftrack box on the main turret hatch, again to differentiate it from my other grey Panzers. The whole idea is to represent a Panzer III on the eve of Operation Barbarossa. A separate blog post and photos to follow.
This is the first of two King Tiger tank kits sold in a twin pack by Pegasus Hobbies.
The box had been in local storage (in Bristol rather than Kent) and I made one up to give me a little break from the most recent batch of English Civil War infantry.
This is the only quick assembly plastic King Tiger kit available (to my knowledge), and I was very happy to discover this particular box on a market stall in Wells, Somerset. The models are made of a highly resilient plastic which did not agree with my clippers when it came to removing pieces from the sprue. This resulted in unfortunate chips in places, most notably on the bow machine gun port.
However, with liberal application of Liquid Green Stuff and Plastic Soldier Company German tank accessories, my frown soon turned upside down. What I thought would be a pig of a tank to finish actually became an enjoyable side project.
As seen in the photos below, I opted for a classic 1944 ambush palette of Brown, Yellow and Green, applied using a small piece of washing up sponge. I gave the turret a pintle mounted MG42 and added a couple of jerry cans to break up the predominantly brown stowage items.
It's one hell of a fighting machine on paper, combining the Panther's sloped armour aesthetics with an improved version of the Tiger 1's 88mm gun. In reality it was a slow, unreliable, bridge-breaking behemoth that was excellent in static defence until it either broke down or became surrounded by ever increasing numbers of lower quality Allied tanks.
This model will go well with any German force from mid 1944 onwards. At some stage I want to diversify the WW2 rules of One Hour Wargames to properly reflect differences in Allied and German tanks, as the standard rule set makes this beast equivalent to a M4 Sherman or Cromwell, medium tanks that were far outclassed in a one on one confrontation.
Here are some photos of two trucks I'm working on at the moment for my World War 2 Germans. They're both from the Plastic Soldier Company German medium trucks box, and went together very easily. The only delay to assembly was painting the driver and passenger before sealing them inside the cab. The grey truck, which has a removable canvas top, will serve as battlefield clutter or an objective for my Early War Germans, whereas the dark yellow Blitz will be given a generic camouflage scheme so it can serve a similar purpose with any of my other Wermacht forces.
I've given them a black ink all over so now it's time for some drybrushing / highlighting, as well as a little weathering. As I'm relatively new to the latter technique I have a tendency to overdo it, but hopefully I'll reign myself in from making these vehicles look like rusted hulks!
Meanwhile, I'm also in the process of finishing my second WW2 British 2-pounder AT gun team. Once that is ready for battle, I will have one last German infantry unit to paint up and base before my 1940 BEF and early Germans can clash on the battlefield, using the One Hour Wargames force compositions.
So after a long slog through hordes of little grey men, I have 3 of the 4 German infantry units I need for my One Hour Wargames Early War Germans.
These footsloggers are highly detailed Zvezda models - German infantry are one of the most numerous plastic soldier products ever made by a vast number of manufacturers, but Zvezda produce by far the most detailed figures.
I tried to differentiate units with different poses and tried to keep an NCO with an MP40 and a machine gun team in each where possible.
After all that grey (GW Dawnstone, with GW Nuln Oil black ink washes) I'm taking a little break from my last batch of Wermacht to crack on with my hopefully more colourful English Civil War armies. Onwards, to victory!
So just to keep track of what is on my painting tray, here is a list of its current occupants :
Second Martian Assault Tripod - wielding a Black Smoke launcher and to be given a red "helmet". The abandoned trench scene depicted on the base is complete but not fully painted yet.
WW2 Early War German infantry x2 - these need some ink on the hands and faces followed by a general tidying up of the grey uniforms. Nearly there - leaving just one last unit of grey footsloggers to finish the Germans off.
Steampunk tanks - these are steam tanks from the All Quiet on the Martian front warhaming range, 15mm scaled so more like tankettes at 1/72 / 20mm scale. They have a very basic first coat of dark green but I'm probably going to put these back on the shelf for a bit as I want to prioritise other projects.
Speaking of prioritisation, from playing two wargames I really need more battlefield scenery. I have a couple more hills that need dark ink coats, and I am also in dire need of trees, which I need to base up and paint to match the wargaming mat. In short, more terrain is the name of the game!
These are German medics from Zvezda, another small Art of Tactic box set. I decided not to include the red cross on the helmets as it was a little too fiddly. The wounds and bloodstains are achieve by using the GW paint "blood for the blood god". These may be used during my Wargames as casualty markers, or just to add a little flavour to the battlefield.
My Early War Germans now need their infantry units. I'm getting a little bored of all the grey and drab colours-.once the Wermacht have their footsloggers I'll be focusing on my English Civil War armies, with some slightly brighter colours.
My Early War Germans for One Hour Wargames are slowly coming together. I've now added the two anti tank units and artillery units (referred to in OHW as mortars).
The anti tank units comprise of a Zvezda Pak 36 anti tank gun with two crew, and a converted Armourfast Hanomag Halftrack fitted with a Pak of the same calibre from the Plastic Soldier Company. The crew and furniture are also PSC. The difference between the delicate, detailed Zvezda gun and the thicker, more durable PSC one is considerable, but I doubt on the wargaming table they'll be deployed close together and clash.
The mortars are from a small Zvezda Art of Tactic box set. I altered one of the crew's arms to differentiate the two teams. Lots of grey, and black ink, but worth it in the end.
