Saturday, December 20, 2014

The War Shall Proceed, i.e., I Finished Up My Early War Stuff

All,

As I'm sure you noticed, I didn't get any gaming in last weekend as I was working hard on finishing up my WWII early war stuff.  They are now ready to go, and so I have the minis ready to play out Germany's invasion of Poland (mind you, I don't have Poles, so Soviets will be standing in for them).  I just need to find time today to 1) clean up my toy room (get the troops and table ready), 2) get the admin side of things cleaned up (my German order of battle, and mission and force generators (need to modify Ivan's 5Core Company Commander mission and army generators just a bit), and 3) map out the campaign fights (I intend on doing a 'tree,' i.e., this is the first fight, which progresses to one of two different fights dependent upon who won the first one, and so on.  So here's what I've been working on:

Here's the whole set of units I've been working on.

Another look.  Mostly German and Russian, with a bit of Brits thrown in.  Everything in here is from Pendraken, except for two officer figures (one Soviet, one German) from Minifigs.

Three BT-7s, with Pendraken tank crew on the far left tank.

For the whole force, I glued the turrets, glued the tank crewman on, gave them a green spray prime, painted the tracks and MGs (and crewman), put a little rust on exhausts, maybe a dark green box or something, give them a blackwash, glue them to the base, flocked them, and maybe threw on a bush or two.  Even with that limited amount of steps it took me way longer than expected to do the whole force...

Three T-26s.

Two T-70s.  I should probably get more of these.

That was a sentiment that came up a couple times during this, but I don't want to wait to start my campaign any longer, so, "you go to war with the army you have."

Two KV-1s (on right) and an early T-34.  I have six more plastic Takara T-34s, not real sure why I bought this one...

Two BA-10 armored cars.

Three SU-76s.  I had actually done these up months ago, but finally got around to basing them up.  You can see I had drybrushed these as well, and added crewmen from gun packages.

Some Soviet cavalry.

Three bases (squads) of engineers, with flamethrowers and those damned anti-tank dogs that don't seem to have been all that widespread (much less effective), but seem to show up everywhere...

Four BA-64 armored cars.

Four 45mm Anti-Tank Guns (ATGs).  These appear to be the 'long' version, when I meant to get the short version.  Well, if you know me at all you know that I'll not let that bother me on the tabletop...

Two 76mm field guns, and the Soviet command stand (using a German truck and a Minifigs officer, along with one of the Pendraken Soviet engineers).

On to ze Germans...  Four Panzer Mk IIIs with 37mm guns, one sporting a Pendraken German tank crewman.

Two Panzer IIs.  It doesn't bother me one bit that I'm going to play Poland and France with zero Panzer Is, but I really wish I'd have gotten more Panzer IIs, as these were in widespread use deep into Barbarossa.  I only bought two because I was only going to use them as part of recon elements in Russia; I never really had any desire to play Poland or even France.  But then I read a book that 'talked' me into buying some French for gaming, and then Ivan put out his 5Core Company Command rules, and the idea to play a campaign spanning the entire war suddenly seemed like a great idea.

Three Pz Mk IVs with short 75mm guns.

Two Stug IIIs with short 75mm, and a PzJgr I with 47mm gun (and a spare ATG crewman standing in as a vehicle crewman).

My early war German recon: a Sdkfz 234, a Sdkfz 221, and a Sdkfz 222, which I'll proudly use through all the early war campaigns.  Here you can see the only vehicle markings I put on anything: simple white crosses on all the German vehicles.

Five stands of motorcycle troops.

Three anti-tank rifle teams; the Pendraken pack gives you ten ATR gunners.  I cut the rifles off half of them and put them on as assistants.

The 37mm ATGs and two 75mm field guns.

Three 50mm mortars (really hard to see as they're so small).

Not early war, but I finished up two Nebelwerfers.  My apologies for the nasty photo...

The German command stand.  I'm pretty sure they didn't have Sdkfz 250s in Poland and France, but somehow we must carry on.

Reverse.

On to the Brits.  Top left is a Cruiser (sorry, I forget which type off the top of my head), with two Matildas.  I do have a Matilda II on order that I intend on using in France as well.

Two of the little Vickers MG tanks.

Brit armored cars (that I'll use throughout the entire war; I have an identical set you'll see for my Desert Rats, as well).

My rather small fleet (compared to the Dear Mr. Travers) of Bren carriers.

Not early war, but I added some more M-3 halftrack personnel carriers, and one carting a quad-.50 around.  The M-3s are added to the four I already have.

Well, that's what I've been busting my butt trying to finish.  For those interested in seeing my other early war stuff:

Here's a link to my French:
http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2014/02/for-my-dear-mssrs-ronan-and-le-manchou.html

And the Germans and Soviets:
http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2013/10/german-and-soviet-companies-wwii.html

All that stuff should get me up to my campaign detour to the North African desert.

Standby for action!

V/R,
Jack

14 comments:

  1. Strangely, I have about the same number of early Russians as you do, albeit in a larger (I wanted to write better but it is your blog so resisted). However, I don't have any T26s but want some, and only a couple of 45mm - I keep meaning to buy some more. And of course I have more carriers :-)

    Looking forward to you getting them on the table.

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    1. I always feel kind of bad about the T26. Early/mid 30's, it was a state of the art tank. By 41, it was outdated garbage. Still, they look nice and they blow up good when the enemy looks at them funny :)

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    2. I like the look of the T-26 too, but I agree that by the time the war started they were outclassed. But I still want some (in 20mm). My favourite of the early war Soviet tanks is the T-70. A great tank at the time.

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    3. Yeah, T70 is a really nifty vehicle. I usually always squeeze some in when I play Steel Panthers on the PC

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  2. Thanks Al, thanks for stopping by!

    Shaun - It doesn't matter how many you have if you don't get to use them, so up and at'em, buddy ;) Standby for my most ambitious campaign ever!

    Along those lines, it's Sunday and no gaming :( Had some family stuff come up which kept me from doing all my required homework, so I'm still not quite ready to invade Poland... But I do have the first six games mapped out, which will be the crossing of the frontier, then five fights during the vicious battle of Mokra.

    That will be followed by the dash to Warsaw, quickly getting their nose bloodied, then falling back to take part in the reduction of Army Group Poznan at the Battle of Kutno/Bzura. Then chop from 10th Army to 8th Army and head back to Warsaw (specifically Praga), then cap it off by returning to 10th Army for the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski. The action will kick off soon; probably next Saturday, though possibly the day after Christmas?

    Ivan - I can't wait to make you cry with all the commies I'll soon be mowing down! By the way, my early war favorite is the BT-7.

    Take care fellas.

    V/R,
    Jack

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    1. If I wasn't sick and socialising in between for the last 4 days, I would have got the half a table tennis table set up for a few 20mm games over the Christmas break. So maybe later this week. But it will be 1944 western front.

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    2. Quit with the excuses and hop to it! I this against your regular opponent?

      V/R,
      Jack

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    3. They will be against my most regular opponent - me! But I should be able to get in a game against the 10 year old over the break (the 10 year old is the same as person as the 9 year old I played with in July, but with a birthday in between!)

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    4. Gaming with kids is the best :-)

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    5. The bad side is they seem to win more than they should!

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    6. Well, I hope you're able to get in a few solo games in addition to the one against the kid. Does this mean you're done with Ancients for a bit, and back to 'real' gaming? ;)

      On a side note, I actually may have some buddies come over for a game or two; it's been about two years since my last game against living opponents...

      V/R,
      Jack

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    7. I have some ancient games I have played and the posts are in draft but need me to finish them. And then, yes, I will be back to 'real' gaming (if that is what you want to call it, who am I to burst that bubble?).

      Good news on the buddies, hope it works out.

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  3. The BT-7 has the distinction of actually being a pretty good tank to boot.
    And you know that Reds get better dice rolls in my games ;)

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