Another great Charie Don't Surf battle report from Penfold, this one using scenario #06: Playing the Beanball from the Surf's Up scenario pack.
Here the Communist forces learn an important lesson about playing as insurgents rather than playing as regulars...
Click on the Surf's Up cover, below, to see all:
My second platoon of anti-tank guns for my UAR/Egyptian force for the Six Day War consists of a couple of gigantic ex-Soviet 100mm BS-3 weapons.
These are truly huge: jutting out from their bases like...well, I'll leave you to choose an appropriate metaphor given their extreme capacity for, er, penetration!
Nice models, but I did find it very difficult to get the gun barrels straight after they arrived in the pack looking like Audrey Horne had done a cherry-stalk number on them!
The crews are again a mixture of Battlefront and Peter Pig.
Back in 2013, Joakim and some of his fellow Penguins took advantage of an empty house to set up and play a huge game of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum!
Here's the AAR, with some great pictures of a truly huge table! Click on the picture below to see all.
A fairly quiet week in the painting challenge, but still enough to justify a cheeky Sunday afternoon update.
In no particular order, we have:
Today's pics? Mr Naylor's Soviets and the Double G's Anglo-Danish warband:
Now that the infantry and armour are all sorted, it was time to add the other support weapons to my UAR/Egyptian force for the Six Day War. Top of the list had to be anti-tank guns.
Looking at my orders of battle (available here) I could see that the vast majority of Egyptian AT guns were ex-Soviet 57mm Zis-2 pieces (around 300 of them), followed by ex-British 6-pounders (about 100 of them), followed by a smattering of ex-Soviet 100mm BS-3 guns (maybe 70 of them). Off to the Battlefront website to do some buying.
Interesting...the only pack of anti-tank guns that Battlefront has for the Six Day War is a mixed pack of two 82mm recoil-less rifles (which you get as part of the company HQ anyway), one Zis-2, and two BS-3s. Yes, it's technically a three gun platoon, but why use the least common anti-tank gun as the mainstay? Another Battlefront mystery!
So I decided, by buying the two-pack of Zis-3/Zis-2 WW2 Soviet guns, to get two platoons of towed anti-tank guns: one of three Zis-2s, one of two BS-3s. Here is the first off the production line: the Zis-2s.
The crews are a mix of the crews included in the pack with the addition of spares from the helmet-heads within the Peter Pig Modern Africa range (a very useful range indeed for filling in the gaps in any Soviet-equipment-using force).
I decided to give my guns five crew members each, rather than the usual four, as I have a feeling that I might need every man I can get to turn back the eventual Israeli tide!
I have wanted a platoon of 15mm WW2 Female Soviet infantry for ages. I even started a Eureka Miniatures 300 Club push to try and get some made, but although quite a few people joined, we just didn't quite reach the required target.
It's very nice to see, therefore, that Bad Squiddo Games (aka Annie, The Dice Bag Lady) have released a range of Soviet fighting women...it's just that they seem to have made a terrible mistake and done so in the wrong scale!
Available for pre-order now (shipping 25th April) this 28mm range looks really good. There's enough variety to produce a whole platoon i.e. there are figures with rifles, SMGs, LMGs and officers; and the figures are beautifully proportioned and, dare I say it, realistic looking. I'm particularly liking the snipers and tank riders/commanders.
You can see pics of some of the figures below, and here's a link to the Bad Squiddo website. Now will someone please produce these in 15mm. Please.
Sniper Team, Standing
Command, Medic, WO
LMG Team
Tankers
Tank Riders
Another of Penfold's Charlie Don't Surf battle reports from 2011. This one uses the fourth scenario from the Surf's Up scenario booklet: Combat Engineer.
Click on the pic to see all:
Another 2007 battle report from Dr. The Viking: this time a massive late war tank-only battle.
Click on the pic to see all:
Quick Tuesday update for the TFL Painting Challenge, including two first-of-the-year entries.
In no particular order, we have:
We'll go Reb for today's pics:
Dave Humm's Confederate cavalry
Andrew Helliwell's Confederate infantry
Joe Patchen and friends have started to work their way through the Anzio: Wildcat to Whale scenario pack (available to buy from here or from the TFL website)
Here's an AAR from their first game: Scenario 10: Highway Seven. Click on the pic to see all:
Spotted an AAR from the Penguins that I must have missed first time around: an excellent write up with masses of brilliant photos from Joakim Strom.
The Soviets have massed and are pushing forward along one of the main roads into Berlin. Can the German defenders stop them? Click on the pic to see all:
Here's a battle report for Charlie Don't Surf from 2011, trawled from what looks like a bit of a defunct blog: the Tao of Lard.
It's a couple of reports from 2011 covering The Great Rice Hunt: the first scenario from the Surf's Up scenario book. Click on the pic below to see all:
Incidentally, I would just like to add that it's worth noting that blogs are hard work to maintain. Even if 'real life' doesn't get in the way, it's hard to keep posting day after day or even week after week or month after month.
That's one of the reasons for this site: it's become an archive of writings about the TooFatLardies' company-level rules from all over the place, and that to such an extent that more and more people are sending me their AARs direct.
I do always try and contact people before copying their material here...but so many blogs have no way of directly contacting the owner anywhere on view, and I don't want to ask via a comment for all to see: just too embarrassing. So I hope in this instance the blog owner doesn't mind me resurrecting his content in this way. My contact details are on the left if needed.
I wasn't expecting to do another update before the weekend, but so many entries have come in that, if I don't, I run the risk of being overwhelmed!
So, in no particular order, we have:
Today's pics are from Mr Fitch, some of his WW2 Germans; Mr Baldwin, his Napoleonic French infantry; and from Thomas, his Vietminh:
Mr Fitch's WW2 German armour: great camo scheme!
Mr Baldwin's cracking French infantry
Thomas' Vietminh
My research tells me that in the Six Day War, the UAR (Egyptians) had access to ex-Soviet Maxim machine guns to support their infantry. Now Battlefront don't provide an HMG platoon as part of their UAR 6DW range, so I needed to improvise.
A quick rummage in the bits box turned up one WW2 Soviet gunner and gun, and a shout out to the Lardies with an offer of swapsies led to Jason Ralls kindly supplying the other two needed.
In the meantime, I also bought two Battlefront UAR anti-tank sets, each of which comes with three anti-tank guns and two recoil-less rifles. As I already have some RCLs in my Company HQ, their crews in the AT sets have now been assigned to the HMGs, along with some from Peter Pig bought to bulk things out.
Here they are, and you can see the rest of the Company, and supports, by clicking here.
And following on from his last battle report, here's another fantastic gallery from Norseygamer full of cracking pictures of a recent game of I Ain' Been Shot, Mum!, but this time set in the western desert.
The Brits advance against the Italians, but there are Germans around somewhere as well...click on the picture for more:
An absolutely enormous update today!
In no particular order, we have:
So many entries to choose from for today's photos...but here's a selection. You can see the whole lot in the individual's galleries.
Jon's Napoleonic Brits
Mr Plowman's Xar
Carole's Power Armour Troopers
Sapper's Irish in French Service
Scorecard will be updated tonight..honest, it will!
Another great write up from the Tracks and Treads blog.
This one features almost a continuation of the last game played, with the Germans again advancing against US Paras across the fields of Normandy.
Click on the pic below to see more:
Whilst I've been adding the tabletop stats to the Q13 army lists, I've found the time to add a couple of new ones to the list: both based on ranges of figures that I'd love to start collecting...once, of course, the lead mountain is down to manageable proportions!
Onslaught Miniatures produce some of the best sci-fi lines out there. The trouble is that the vast majority of their output is in 6mm: very frustrating for the 15mm gamer when you can see all these beautifully developed ranges and not be able to use them!
They have produced a couple of packs of 15's, however: one for the Sisterhood (sort of space nuns with guns) and one for the Tzacol (more primitive lizardy types).
So, in homage to their single pack of 15's, I've created a list for the Sisterhood for Q13 based on their much more extensive 6mm range. Perhaps this will get the rest of the range up-sized as well!
Here's a couple of pics to show you how good these figures are: one pic of the Athena squad in 15mm, and one of the 6mm command group, showing other types of Sisterhood trooper.
Another manufacturer who carries several ranges that I might eventually just have to buy is Rebel Minis.
Unfortunately, they fall into the category of manufacturer who produce great basic infantry squads, but no more i.e. great for platoon-level games, but not a complete enough range to create a company-plus-supports force.
Two examples of this are the Brog and the VOTT: both available as a three-squad platoon plus command, but with no support weapons or vehicles.
The two races also look quite similar, and seem to use the same weapons...so I've decided to brigade them together into one list.
As they don't have any designated support weapons or vehicles, and Rebel Minis produce a lovely range of support walkers they call VIPERS, I've also decided that, much like Critical Mass' Protolenes, the support for the Brog or VOTT will come from the VIPERS, of which there are five types, so plenty of flexibility as regards weapon loads and therefore role.
Here's a few pics showing the ranges: the Brog infantry platoon, the VOTT command, and a the VIPER with Mk3 weapon package.
Both lists, and all the others, are available from the Q13 Army Lists page. More to come!
Following on from his last AAR, here is Joe Patchen's follow up report covering the next phase of his linked Operation Bagration games.
Click on the pic to see all:
Terrific, and huge, gallery from Norseygamer telling the story of a recent IABSM game set on the eastern front.
Click on the pic below to see more...much more!
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)
Welcome to Vis Lardica, a not-for-profit website mostly dedicated to the company-sized wargaming rules produced by the TooFatLardies, but encompassing my other gaming interests as well.
If you need to contact me, you can do so at:
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