The defense of Pokhlebin

 After they failed to hold on to Kotelnikovo (read the report here) the Soviets are about to attack the German lines again at Pokhlebin in the third scenario of the Winter Storm campaign.

The German firepower (2 LMGs per squad) made life difficult for the Soviets in the first 2 games, and this time it was no different. To make matters worse they would have to cross a significant stretch of open ground to get to the German held village.

Leading the Soviet attack is a lone T34/76.

The Germans deploy their PAK 40 and open fire, but the T34 proves to be a tough nut to crack.

Achtung panzer!

Suddenly there is movement in the wooded area. The Soviets deploy a platoon that immediately lays down fire on the PAK crew.

The T34 starts firing HE at the PAK crew. Together with the fire from the Soviet platoon in de woods, this inflicts a lot of shock. 

The Germans now deploy a squad in one of the buildings to counter the Soviet threat in the woods. Also the unterfeldwebel arrives to remove shock from the PAK crew.  A bit of a risk because this means the yet to be deployed 2 German squads may not arrive when required.

The unterfeldwebel keeps the PAK firing and finally the T34 is destroyed.

The second Soviet platoon now deploys in the area of scrub and sends a hail of fire through the wooden building containing the German squad. Casualties are mounting on the German side. An attempt to deploy a German squad in the building that overlooks the scrub area where the Soviets are fails because the unterfeldwebel was already deployed......

The PAK now switches to HE and blasts the Soviets in the scrub area. The 16 shots fired each activation by the German squad in the building begins to take its toll on the Soviets in the woods.

They have however one squad still in good shape. It moves towards a blind spot in the German line unopposed and without incurring any shock (two sixes for movement!).

At this point the Germans use their full Chain of Command dice to ambush the Soviet squad. Although the Soviets take some damage, their (wounded!) senior leader leads them in a charge and they wipe out the German ambushers.

Uraaah!

The Germans are now taking fire from their front and right flank and their left flank is open to the Soviets.

However, their deployment roll luck changes and the last German squad is deployed in the building overlooking the Soviet held scrub area. This is bad news for the Soviets: they are getting hit hard and their force morale is dropping.

On the left flank, the last German team deploys in time to block the Soviet squad from overrunning the PAK. Both sides open fire at point blank range.

 

Joined by the unterfeldwebel the team repels the Soviets, reducing their force morale to 1 and effectively ending the game.

Again a tough game for the Soviets, although the outcome could have been entirely different if the Germans had been unable to stop the flanking manouver. As it turned out, having a full Chain of Command dice available and especially a not unlucky deployment dice roll combined with a not unlucky arrival dice roll saved the day for the Germans.

The bridge at Qassad Uhm

 Finally a game again, after weeks of lockdown monotony. This time a game of Black Ops. 

The story so far:

Special forces have snatched the insurgent leader Barfani and delivered him to nearby coalition forces. It is imperative that Barfani is moved to a more secure location. Unfortunately he has to be moved by road because helicopter assets are unavailable.

Syldavian coalition forces are transporting Barfani in a convoy. The insurgents have been tipped off and have prepared an ambush near the bridge at Qassad Uhm.

Drone's eye view

The Syldavian convoy enters the board while the insurgents stay hidden on the other side of the bridge.

Syldavians survey the area but are unable to spot the insurgents peeking over the stone wall. A car is blocking the road up ahead but it is not considered a problem by the LAV commander.

More insurgents are revealing themselves while the lead vehicle traverses the bridge.

The Syldavians have still not spotted the insurgents and drive on until....

Boom! The insurgents detonate an IED, setting the LAV engine on fire.

Incredibly, the explosion does not end the stealth phase (in Black Ops, the defending troops only become under control of the player after the stealth phase ends). The Syldavians are looking around but don't see anything suspicious!

Finally, after several RPG's have been fired and the second vehicle has sustained damage to the tyres, the stealth phase ends and Syldavians (still in their jungle camo uniforms from their previous deployment in Africa) become aware that they are under attack!

Troops exit the second vehicle and exchange fire with the insurgents. The crew of the LAV have managed to extinguish the engine fire and start looking for someone to shoot at.

The insurgents lose one of their RPG men and decide to rush the LAV with hand grenades while it is firing at their buddies.

The Syldavians wipe out the insurgent team with the other RPG, but the insurgents take out the crew of the LAV with hand grenades.

Meanwhile, the vehicle carrying Barfani has reversed and 2 Syldavians have deployed in the building, firing at the insurgents behind the stone wall. The APC has taken up position on the other side of the road and is firing its GPMG at the insurgents behind the tank.

At this point we decided to call it a day. 

The insurgents had lost all their weapons able to penetrate vehicle armour (in the Black Ops rules). The road was still blocked for the Syldavians, but we reasoned they could reverse the damaged Hummer and use the APC to push the LAV and the car blocking the road out of the way, driving past the insurgents and out of the ambush.

It had been quite a while since we played Black Ops so we had to look up stuff in the rulebook lots of times. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the game, especially because it was an opportunity to use a number of toys in a game for the first time (the bridge, the vehicles, the Syldavians, the gaming mat, the stone walls and the building) which is always a joy.

Box girder bridge

 A bridge is pretty much an essential piece of scenery for wargames. Although I built an arched stone bridge in the past, I wanted a box girder bridge for WW2 and modern games.

When I came across some second hand H0 railway bridges, I got the idea to convert them for 28mm games.

The larger bridge was cut lengthwise and glued to pieces of thick cardboard. Bamboo skewers were added for stability.

Some grey paint to finish it.

I'm going to make a footbridge out of the other bridge with the help of a few popsicle sticks.

The Titan; converting a Playmobil ship to 28mm

I scratchbuilt a ship before from (mainly) high density styrofoam and a plastic box for use in pulp games (see the Whiteout game report here). Reading about people converting Playmobil ships on, I think it was the Lead Adventure Forum, put the idea in my head to try this myself. I searched the internet for some examples and found these pages covering the conversion of the Playmobil Titan ship:

Pulp big ship 

Cargo ship

I kept my eye out for a second hand Titan and eventually got hold of one. Unfortunately it came without the deck plates that cover the cargo hold. Also a number of other bits were missing.

After some thinking I decided to cover the cargo hold with a removable sheet of plasticard. Some extra bits of plasticard were glued at the underside to prevent it from sliding off, but still allowing quick access to the hold. For the wheelhouse I decided to maximise the area for miniatures to be placed with a corrugated cardboard floor, leaving a small gap for the stairs down.

The aft section allows miniatures to be placed, but then the figure can't look over the sides. A bit of styrofoam fixed this (sorry for the blurry pic, but it was the only one I took of this part). The styrofoam was covered with steel plating paper left over from my submarine project.

Next issue was the doorway to the wheelhouse and the rather ugly holes with rusted screws that fix the deck to the hull (lower right corner). The hand railing is a bit of sprue.

Here also plasticard provided the answer. I covered the upper part of the entire front of the wheelhouse and middle part of the "backdoor" with plasticard. The screw-holes were covered with WHFB dwarf (or skaven) shields. Some more bits like life belts, lights, an antenna, a fire extinguisher and some signs were added.

The inside of the wheelhouse had to look the part while still allowing enough space for miniatures to be placed. With dashboard and other bits from 1/35 (truck) kits and a chair from a toy car I built a conning position in one of the corners. Other bits provided cabinets for the other walls. Transparent plastic packaging material, cut to size, were used as window-panes. I got some maps and chart images from the internet and printed these for extra detailing.

And with that the ship is ready for being assaulted by 28mm special forces and free hostages, arrest smugglers and the like.

 

Das Boot

I really like the film and always planned to build a submarine to feature in games. After looking at a lot of photos and drawings of actual submarines my plan was to build something that was not an exact replica but a close enough approximation of a WW2 submarine to be used in Interbellum, WW2 or early Cold War games. Possibily even games in a modern day setting where a crime syndicate has refurbished an old submarine for smuggling contraband. 

I started with a basic shape cut from styrofoam, using a plastic cheese spread container for the conning tower. Figures should be able to stand in the conning tower.

The deck gun (from anyscalemodels) was glued to a magnet so it could be easily attached and removed.

To achieve the riveted plating look I searched the internet for suitable pictures, stitched these together to create a larger surface and printed several sheets.

After covering the hull with the paper (note: this did warp the styrofoam, making it necessary to leave it for a while with some weights on it to counter the warping) I delved into my bits box for detailing the hull and conning tower.

The aft gun (from Tiger miniatures) was glued to a large nail so it could be removed. The railing is made from chicken wire.

The end result after painting (rivets and lines on the conning tower were done using a sharpie):