Category: 20mm Wargaming

MWS at Salute 50

A small contingent from the society braved the roads (and rails) to Excel last weekend to stage Peter’s Fallujah 2004 game at Salute 50.

A view from one end of the Salute 50 hall to the other, MWS were at the far right end in this photo.

The premise of the game is that a USMC platoon have been tasked with clearing an area of Fallujah, sweeping through buildings to clear them of insurgents. The three participants each control one of the platoon’s squads, and depending on the draw of Fog of War cards may have additional assets to aid them in their mission, for example, helicopters, an M1 Abrams tank, a LAV-25 APC, a sniper team or a Navy Corpsman.

Games are intended to last an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes, and use a simplified version of Ambush Alley’s Force on Force rules. Figures are from Elhiem Figures Modern range, civilian vehicles from Matchbox or similar and buildings and terrain scratch-built by Society member Peter.

Peter and John explaining the finer points of the rules to the three volunteers.

Here are a few more photos of the game in action:

We were very pleased to be awarded a prize by the South London Warlords: “Best 10 – 18mm game”.

The game’s mastermind, Peter, receiving the award.

The trophy

Congratulations to Peter for creating an award winning game, and thanks to all members who have helped run the game at shows this year.

The game’s next appearance is at Broadside on June 10th.

What a (Christmas) Tanker !

Marcus takes us through this year’s Christmas shenanigans, as we all turned into complete tankers…

I think I first suggested having a game of “What A Tanker” (WAT) as a club Christmas game in early 2020. We all know what happened next. This year we finally got a Christmas outing for this Lardy game at the club, with ten participants. Thanks to Phil and Tony, we were able to choose from a wide variety of tanks, from recently painted Pz 35’s and FCM-36’s to Phil’s scratch-built Maus. (“No Phil, there are no stats for a Maus!”) No-one even noticed that I didn’t complete my ESCI Jagd. Pz. IV, or finish re-conditioning my Jagd. Panther, as Phil had managed to recondition his with a generous helping of agrax earthshade, nuln oil or some such alchemy

Between Alan and Tony, we were provided with a couple of great tables (perhaps too great…) with plenty of cover representing western European towns with villages, woods and crossroads etc. Plenty of cover…

The idea was that we would have two tables; late war and early war. If you got knocked out you would simply join the other table, not necessarily on the same side. However, while you were on a table, you would be either German or Allied; no “own goals” to boost your scoring as it were.

We also generated a simple system of scoring. If you got a kill you divided the points value of the target as listed in the WAT rulebook by the firer (TV/FV * 10 = score). Tony produced a nice table to cross reference the values easily.

Late War Table

I started on the late war table driving a Stuart, with Steve and “Baggins” (my youngest) driving Shermans. Our initial nasty Nazi opponents were Andy and Alan, both with Pz.IV’s.
While Steve and Baggins drove up the flanks, I ventured through the outskirts of a village to find Alan’s Pz.IV on the road more or less blocking my advance. Both Steve and I struggled to manoeuvre with our dice, which can be a frustration with the rules. Many modifications were suggested, and I took notes with a view to my own Grav Tanker variant. As I tried to extricate myself from the built-up area and with Steve attempt to outflank him on our left, Baggins moved up on the right all guns blazing at Andy. These two ended up in a protracted fire fight with Baggins in position behind a wall and Andy, IIRC, initially behind some hedges and the traversing between the woods and hedges as a result of a series of non-damaging hits. Eventually Andy paid a heavy penalty and brewed up and Boaz picked up the “Impressive Bush” camouflage card. Meanwhile, first Steve and then I joined in pumping rounds into Alan, with Steve finishing him off and earning a “Hell Driver” card.

Jeremy joined us having suffered brutally on the early war table, and boosted the axis forces with Andy’s departure. Baggins traded shots with a returning Alan as Jeremy moved up. Baggins then got his come-uppance and while attempting to get up close and personal with Jeremy (talk of ramming was heard) suffered a kill at Jeremy’s hands and promptly left for the early war table. Steve and I again poured fire into the luckless Alan, whose dice rolls deserted him. Somewhere amongst the melee (as it was very much close quarters stuff) my Stuart went BOOM and it was Steve again who got the kill, then promptly had to leave the game early. Meanwhile Baggins had got a kill on the early war table where Andy had suffered more ill-fortune!

Between us, we took a grand total of two photos of the late war table – a bit of an oversight when it came to writing up the game here ! Here’s Andy’s view of the table(Ed)

Early War Table
Marcus didn’t make it onto the 1940 table, so Tony F outlines what happened over there

The early war table was slightly larger with less cover than the late war one, which probably made for a more open game. We also ruled early on that the flimsy wooden fences didn’t count as obstacles – we allowed tankers to see and drive through them without penalty. There were plenty of tanks to choose from – 9 French (FCM-36, R-35, H-35, H-39/40, FT-17, AMC-35, Char D2, Char B1 bis and SOMUA S-35), 5 British (Mk.IVc, A-9, A-10, A-13 and Matilda), 10 German (Pz.IIC, Pz.IIE, Pz.IIIF, Pz.IVA. Pz.IVD. Pz.35(t), Pz.38(t), PzJg.I, StuG IIIA and a Neubaufahrzeug!), and even some Belgians (T.13B3, T.15 and ACG-1). Not all of these are in the rulebook, but coming up with stats for them was pretty straightforward – I drew up a chart for easy reference.

All tankers started the game with a Level 1 tank, and we allowed upgrades to better vehicles as the game went on. The Germans, Brian, Jeremey and Pete, started out with a Pz.35(t), Pz.IVA and Pz.Jg I respectively. Dave and Chris both chose British Cruisers (A10 and A9), while I took a French Hotchkiss H-35. All we can say is that if the Allies had performed on the battlefield like they did on our table, WW2 would have been over in June 1940 ! Chris took up a firing position looking straight down the road and proceeded to ping away at anything that moved with his trusty 2pdr, while Dave and I ‘raced’ up the flanks (in our slow tanks). Details are hazy, but we wiped out the first wave of Germans without loss, including Jeremey’s brave Pz.IVA that advanced across the fields to challenge Chris at point blank. The duel at the abandoned farm between Pete’s PzJg.I and my H.35 was a contest between his powerful Czech-made 47mm gun and my thicker-than-average armour, offset by his tin plate defence and my short 37mm popgun. In the end, unlike in 1940, it went the way of the French. As we wore down the Germans various tank commanders switched tables – Andy turned up in a StuG.IIIA and Boaz a late model Pz.38(t), but they were seen off in equally short order, although there were some interesting cat-and-mouse chases around the village. Dave and Chris both eventually lost their original mounts (Dave swapped his for a shiny new Matilda.II) but my Hotchkiss led a charmed life and survived the day with just the permanent loss of one dice (and a lot of dents in the armour).

In the end we didn’t keep an accurate tally of the overall scoring, but Dave seems to have emerged as Top Tanker with four kills set against a single loss, followed by my plucky H-35 with four kills and no losses (Dave’s kills were of higher value targets which offset the loss of his A10). Kills seemed to be harder to come by on the late war table.

Lights! Camera! Action! Take 2

For our next instalment in this series Tony starts with a couple of submissions:

Our title image is a scene from the film “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”, the Charge of the Rohirrim, with Théoden at the fore during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Figures from Tony’s extensive collection.

Returning to history, Tony says: “I thought I’d have a go at recreating some WW2 historical photos for this. I dug out my copy of “Blitzkreig in the West” from After The Battle publishing, which specialises in showing contemporary photos and then retaking the scene as it was in the 70s (when the book was published…)”.

We can’t reproduce the photos from the book for copyright reasons, but here are Tony’s reconstructions.

On May 10th, 2nd Panzer Division was moving through the Ardennes – the original photo shows a PzIII passing a Protze truck. I used a Pz.III and a Horch field car – I didn’t have a Protze with crew figures, the Horch just looked better. In hindsight it needed a backdrop of some sort to hide the garden fence.

Horch field car and Pz.III

In the early hours of May 15th 1940, the French 26eme BCC (heavy tank battalion) encountered units of the 7th Panzer Division near Flavion in Belgium. After heavy fighting the Char B1s were stopped by German artillery. I found a fully painted B1 in my collection that was still awaiting its tracks, so I thought it would make an ideal stand-in for the disabled vehicle on the road.

Char B1s of the French 26eme BCC (heavy tank battalion)

Moving from WW2 to the Hundred Years War, Stephen gives us the Battle of Crécy

The battle of Crecy, 1346

And finally for this submission, a couple of scenes from the Original Top Gun film (1986!) provided by Marcus.

Scene from the original Top Gun, F14 and “Mig-28”, Watch the Birdie!
Scene from the original Top Gun, F14 vs 2 “Mig-28s”

Society Meeting 08/01/2022

A tad delayed, but here’s a photo round up of our first meeting of 2022. In addition to our AGM, we had a SAGA battle day, involving 8 players, a FOG Renaissance ECW game, a Lords of the Rings Game and some Spy-Fi action.

First up a SAGA-fest with Scots, Bretons, Welsh, Vikings and Anglo-Danes. In addition to some experienced SAGA players we had a couple of prospective members join in for their first games.

Andy’s Anglo Danish face off against Stephen’s Welsh
James’ Vikings vs Jeremey’s Anglo Danes
Tony’s Bretons vs John’s Scots
James’ Vikings vs Jeremey’s Anglo Danes
James’ Vikings vs Jeremey’s Anglo Danes
Close up of John’s Scots
Tony’s Bretons

Moving on the the English Civil War, 15mm figures using Field of Gory rules.

ECW Armies line up
Cuirassiers charge
Colonel John Lamplugh’s Regiment of Foot
Royalist Regiments

Moving from history to fiction, Marcus had a try out of his underwater Spy-Fi rules.

Marcus’ seascape
Divers and mini-sub
More divers hiding behind a shoal of fish
The two sides fight over the lost missile.

And finally to Fantasy, a Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.

The scene is set.
Dwarves advance across the bridge
Uruk Hai advance with a Troll in support
Dwarf Heavy Metal
Dwarves holding the Bridge against the Uruk Hai

Club meeting 23rd October

A quick round up of the games at the recent club meeting, four scales, four periods.

First up, a 15mm War of the Roses game between Stephen & Tony (Lancastran) and Jeremey and Andy (Yorkist) using Sword and Spear second edition rules.

Jeremey added some flavour with some random event cards, one to be drawn by each player. The four used in this game were:

Jeremey’s random event cards

Jeremey will write up the game, so I won’t go into detail on how the cards were used here.

Andy’s Yorkist Archers and Crossbows occupy hill as the Lancastrians approach
Andy’s command.
Tony’s Border Horse take on Jeremey’s Men at Arms (with the banner)
The Yorkist line seen from the Lancastrian’s perspective

Next up Mark, David and Alan fought a battle in the War of the Spanish Succession using Mark’s 6mm collection and his own rules.

The battle lines are drawn
The Grand Alliance Lines
Alliance infantry and train.

Cavalry advance
Local firefight

Moving on several centuries, we come to 2004, Fallujah, using Force on Force rules. This 20mm collection was put together during the lockdown by Peter, this is its first outing at the club. Peter was joined by John, Brett, Colin and the other Mark.

Marines on the roof
Marines take casualties while advancing
Pilot’s eye view
Insurgents
The Ruins of Fallujah
Insurgents around a skip
Insurgents in the open

And finally we move into the near future, with an excursion into Zona Alfa. John (another one) took Eric through the rules with a series of short scenarios using his 28mm collection.

Stalkers encounter some mutant dogs
Hostiles approach
Zombies in the smoke
Close encounter of the gruesome mutant kind
Where did everybody go?
Start of the next mission, all seems quiet… too quiet!
Creeping through the undergrowth
Objective taken, but man down.
Anomalies abound

Falluja, Iraq, 2004

Peter reports on his major lockdown project, making its debut at the club today.

This is my lock down project that’s taken the best part of two years to complete. 

It is a modern warfare game using 20mm scale figures and the Force-on-Force rules from Ambush Alley Games. 

We’ve played the rules a few times during past meetings with Mike, who left the club a couple of years ago. They were memorable games and great fun. That’s why I decided to start assembling figures and models to put on a game based on the battle of Falluja, Iraq, 2004.

Here are the first figures ready for action – US Marines and a Humvee with Grenade launcher. 

After assembling and painting more US Marines and a couple more Humvees, I started on the Iraqi insurgents and foreign fighters.

And a couple of Technicals with machine guns. 

Next the terrain.  

The game board is about 4’x4’ and depicts a section of a modern middle eastern city with damaged buildings, debris strewn streets and abandoned vehicles all over the place. 

I chose 4mm foam board for the construction of the buildings as it’s readily available at shops like Hobby Craft and the Range. It’s also easy to cut and it’s light to transport around. The rest of the terrain and building details were sourced from places like S&S models and model railway shops.

Here are some completed buildings.

 Rubble mounds were made of scrunched up newspaper and coarse basing material from various wargames and modelling websites and all stuck down with good old PVA glue. 

I got hold of a plastic model Abrams M1A2 MBT and enhanced it with some baggage and lose rubble. 

More rubble and damaged buildings were made next …

The roads are black 3mm thick soft foam sprayed with grey paint and debris sand and rubble stuck down. The road markings were done with masking tape and paint – gently rubbed down with glass paper when dry. 

A couple of Helo’s adds to the US Marines arsenal… 

A couple of shots from a practice game, Delta team on building clearance mission.