Those of you who are on Facebook might be interested in the Charlie Don't Surf group that I've just joined. It's been around since July last year but, I must confess, I've only just found out about it.
As a reminder, you can also find an I Ain't Been Shot, Mum group on Facebook as well. Click on the name to go straight there.
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Episode Five of the TooFatLardies Oddcast is now available, with Rich and Nick joining Sidney in the studio to discuss how they undertake research when embarking on developing a set of rules.
All of the usual features are there, with a look at what’s on the workbench and a trip to the library.
Click here to go to the Oddcast home page, or you can experience it on YouTube if you prefer.
When IABSM v3 was published, two late war handbooks quickly followed: Battle for Liberation and Vpered Na Berlin. I am very pleased to say that today sees the publication of the first of the v3 early war handbooks: Blitzkrieg in the West #1: The French.
The handbook is 73 pages long, and covers the French Army from 1939 to the fall of France in 1940. It has twenty-nine force listings in it, all looking at core company structure and then the possible battalion, brigade, regimental, divisional and higher level supports. It also has a guide to rating your French forces, and a comprehensive armoury.
Available only as a pdf from the TooFatLardies website, Blitzkrieg in the West #1: The French costs £8.40.
Handbooks covering the BEF, the Belgians and Dutch, and the Germans follow one per month in March, April and May this year.
Blitzkrieg in the West #1: The French contains the following lists:
Infantry Divisions
Infantry Company
GRDI Cavalry Squadron
GRDI Motorcycle Squardon
Motorised Infantry Divisions
Motorised Infantry Company
DIM Motorcycle Company
GRDIM Motorcycle Squadron
GRDIM AMD Squadron
GRDIM AMR Squadron
Independent Tank Formations
Independent Tank Company (R-35, H-35, D-2 or fCM-36)
Independent Tank Company (FT-17)
Colonial Infantry
North African and Foreign Legion formations
Light Cavalry Divisions
Cavalry Squadron
Mechanised Dragoon Fusiliers
Dragoon Mixed Reconnaissance Squadron
RAM AMD Squadron
RAM AMC Squadron
RAM Motorcycle Squadron
Cavalry & Spahis
The Cavalry Squadron
Corps Reconnaissance Groups
GRCA Cavalry Squadron
GRCA Motorcycle Squadron
GRCAm Motorcycle Squadron
Light Mechanised Divisions
Tank Squadron
RDP Mechanised Dragoon AMR Squadron
RDP Mechanised Dragoon Fusilier Squadron
RDP Mechanised Dragoon Motorcycle
RD AMD Squadron
RD Motorcycle Squadron
Reserve Armoured Division
DCR Heavy Tank Company
DCR Light Tank Company
BCP Fusilier Company
One thing I don't have in my WW2 collection is any late war German infantry. Yes, I've got Fallschirmjaeger in camouflaged smocks, but no men in a mixture of feld grau and Zeltbaun.
Until now, that is.
My self-bought Christmas present this year was a PSC company of "Normandy infantry" and their heavy weapons support in 15mm, the first of which I painted this weekend just gone:
I've decided that I'm going to use the figures to build an Aufklarungs Company to go with my already-bought-and-painted SdKfz 250's. I'll then pad that force out to make a full Grenadier company.
Now after painting a company of British Paras in their Denison smocks, I did vow never to paint another camouflaged smock again, but painting these chaps wasn't too bad.
For a start, these are first PSC infantry I've painted: a nice change from the Battlefront and FiB Poles I've been concentrating on recently.
Secondly, these are lovely figures: well posed and with plenty of clear detail to work with. I'm not sure I like the kneeling chap in grey with the binoculars - he looks a bit tall to me - but the others are cracking.
Technique was simple. Undercoat in black, then paint the base colours including the basic tan for the zeltbaun. A very light wash brings out the detail, then highlight and paint on the little green and brown stripes that make up the camouflage. I might have highlighted the greys a bit too strongly, but 15s always look a bit better if a bit over-exaggerated.
I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to painting three platoons worth plus the other supports (about another 100 figures) but the first ten weren't too painful and seem to have turned out quite well.
This year's Painting Challenge is really starting to take off now. Loads of entries came in over the weekend, with more and more of the regulars starting to appear.
So, in no particular order, we have:
As always, clicking on the name of the person above will take you straight through to their gallery (opens in a new window); and, also as always, I'll update the Scorecard over the next few days.
Today's pictures are below:
Knights, but not in white satin, from Sapper
A couple galliots from Blue Moose Ken (wooden models)
A shieldmaiden from Carole
Celts from Ralph (despite the lack of finished basing!)
Some of Chris Cornwell's Germans
Regular visitors to the site will know that one of my regular moans is that sci-fi figure manufacturers rarely produce a full range of figures: they usually produce enough to build an infantry squad, but after that you have to mix and match from other ranges in order to get support weapons, different types of vehicles etc.
The Chuhuac
Loud Ninja Games are better than most: their Chuhuac, for example, have a variety of infantry supported by gravbikes, really cool battlesuits, good-looking AFVs and APCs...everything you could need to represent a fast-moving rapid reaction or reconnaissance force. Cracking stuff.
Up to now, however, their Ikwen range has been limited to a set of what Eli has called militia: enough infantry-types to form a platoon but not much more. I use them as the technical support for the Chuhuac, usually having them positioned defending a supply point or landed transport vessel. Some rather nifty Ikwen terrain pieces are also available, but no support weapons, vehicles and so on.
My Ikwen Engineering Types
Late last year, however, Loud Ninja announced a new set of Ikwen figures: hardened fighters. These were another set of infantry, but this time Ikwen in full combat mode. Now I don't need any Ikwen 'hardened fighters', as that doesn't fit in with the way I use them, but I like to support the smaller manufacturers, and one can't moan on about having no variety if you don't buy them when the variety appears! I also quite fancied having my usual engineer-types suddenly morph into wild warriors ("never make the Ikwen angry") with a quick bit of on-table figure swapping.
The figures duly arrived and I've now painted them:
Ikwen Hardened Fighters
They are pretty nice figures, albeit a little rougher than their predecessors.
That, however, is not really the problem.
The problem is that they are a different size to the militia. Look:
Errrrr...
You can see that the new Ikwen are about a head taller than their forefathers. The height isn't the only problem: look at the difference in size of the calves, width of the chest etc. The Ikwen were big anyway (fully explained by their background)Â now they are huge...and they just don't have the proportions of a 15mm figure: they look...wrong for 15mm.
A related, and annoying problem is what this means for the basing. Note how the original militia Ikwen neatly fits onto a 5p piece, as do the vast majority of 15mm infantry. Now look at the billy-big-balls width of the stance of the hardened fighter: his feet are almost as widely apart as a standard 15mm human is tall!
Not a problem, I hear you cry, he's a very tall Ikwen.
Yes, but he doesn't fit on any sort of sensible base any more.
Billy Big Balls
Anyhow, I have them now, and will have to get them onto the tabletop to see whether they annoy me enough to get rid of them.
Scale creep is a problem with 15mm sci-fi.
Khurasan has a couple of lovely ranges that are quite frankly so 20mm as to be unusable (the Soriog for example), and now it looks as if the Ikwen have unfortunately followed suite.
A good, steady flow of entries coming in for this year's challenge, with a lot of people getting off to a flying start.
Today's entries, in no particular order, are:
As always, clicking on the name of the person, above, will take you straight to their gallery (opens in a new window).
Plenty of time still to enter the challenge: so pick up your brushes and get started. It's almost February already!
Today' pictures are below:
A StuG from Mr Slade
Frenchies from Stumpy
And some Brits to fight them from Mr Haines
A lot of my time at the moment is being spent on the Battle for France: the period between 10th May and mid-June 1940.
Being a wargamer, I've obviously been concentrating on the military side of things but, as ever, you really also need to know what was happening with the governments of the day in order to fully comprehend what was going on. As Clausewitz said: warfare is an extension of politics...and you only have to look at Calais, or the tragedy of the 51st (Highland) Division, to understand how true that statement was in May 1940.
Given all of the above, it was with great interest that I took myself off to the cinema this weekend to see The Darkest Hour: Joe Wright's biopic of Churchill covering that very same period, with Gary Oldman in the lead role.
I'd heard good things about the film, very good things, including audiences actually standing up and applauding at the end, so was looking forward to it, whilst wondering, however, whether it would be as good as Dunkirk, another film that I thought was very good.
So, is The Darkest Hour any good?
Well, I'll tell you: it's brilliant.
Now whilst the audience didn't stand up and applaud at my local (I don't think we do that sort of thing in the Home Counties), there was definitely a straightening of backs and a few "dust in eye" dabbings going on throughout the cinema as Oldman-as-Churchill delivers the final "We shall fight them..." speech. Some of that is down to Churchill's words, some of that is down to Oldman's delivery: honours even as to which, but it's powerful stuff.
For those who don't know, the film covers the period 9th May to 29th May, focussing on how Churchill became PM in the wake of the disastrous Norway campaign and what then happened behind the scenes in government over that time. It looks at how Halifax, Chamberlain and others faltered in their commitment to war (somewhat understandable when you consider that the First World War had only ended 22 years before, leaving the field of Flanders "stained in the blood of a whole generation") and especially when the Italians offered to mediate a peace between Britain and Germany, and all against a background of terrible news from the front. I won't tell you what happens (!) but suffice to say that Churchill stayed true to his convictions that Hitler had to be stopped.
So why is the film so good? First up, hat's off to the cast.
Oldman is sensational as Churchill, portraying him warts and all. This is not some House of Cards used car salesman, but a hard-drinking, often rude and intolerant, often warm-hearted, often insecure man who knows what needs to happen but is regularly faced with nothing but mountains in his path. Oldman manages to portray Churchill's humanity more than anything else, which makes the fact of his greatness even greater. Yes, I know he was a man wedded to past times, some of whose views could now be considered racist or politically incorrect, but he was the man to take us through our darkest hour...and Oldman shows us that. He's won awards for the performance already: he deserves the Oscar as well.
The supporting cast is terrific as well. Halifax and Chamberlain (Stephen Delaine and Ronald Pickup respectively) are the bad guys without being bad guys: you can understand why they wanted peace even if you disagree with them. Kristen Scott Thomas excels as Clemmie, and Lily James does so also as Churchill's somewhat anachronistic secretary, and Ben Mendelson as King George VI. There's not a duff performance out there.
The film gets the atmosphere right as well. It's all very dark and gloomy. The War Rooms are positively claustrophobic, even on the big screen. The House of Commons looks tiny when packed with MPs. It's all good stuff.
The music also helps: soaring chords to match Churchill's oratory, tenser passages to match the stress of what you are watching on screen...and stressful it is. Perhaps not quite as stressful in places as Dunkirk, but still very tense.
So go see this movie before all the Oscars hype. You won't be disappointed.
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It's all very quiet around here lately: must be the January effect as no-one's sending me any AARs or anything else interesting to post. I'm beavering away on my next IABSM publication (no, it's not a third Poland scenario pack!) so haven't any spare time for anything but that.
Anyhoo, here's today's quick TFL Painting Challenge 2018 update:
In no particular order, we have:
As always, clicking on the name above will send you straight through to their gallery (opens in a new window), and I'll be updating the Scorecard tonight.
Today's pictures:
A lovely Honey from Doug Melville
An equally lovely Cromwell from Matt Slade
Mervyn's Men With Big Choppers & Spiky Balls
Here's an after action report for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! from Carole Flint, taken from her blog Hippolyta's Tiny Footsteps .
Allied forces are pushing eastwards into the Low Countries. German resistance is stronger than expected but patchy in places. Defence in many cases depends on ad hoc formations made up from whatever troops are available to counter the advance of the Allied armour.
Click on the pic below to see all...
Good to see that so many of you have made such an early start to this year's challenge. Makes me feel slightly guilty about not having visited the painting table for a couple of weeks!
So, in no particular order, we have the first entries of the year from:
As always, clicking on the name of the person, above, will take you straight to their gallery, which will open in a new window.
Today's pictures are a few of Doug's APCs...
Here's a battle report from a game I played in last weekend, using the Tally Ho! scenario from the Operation Sealion scenario pack.
The report is not written by me, but by Dave...who had the unfortunate task of referring a game in which I was participating. John and Mark played the Brits trying to re-claim a small corner of the UK for Queen and country; I played the dastardly Hun seeking to expand the Third Reich over England's green and pleasant land.
Click on the pic below to see how it all turned out...
For those of you who hadn't noticed, many garden centres are selling off their winter model Christmas trees.
I had heard about this wondrously cheap way of acquiring snowy terrain for the wargaming table, but hadn't actually seen the proof of the (presumably Christmas) pudding.
Until now.
The wife of a friend picked up the above Battle of the Bulge, winter wonderland forest for me for a mere £13.50: and that's for sixty-one trees! A bargain, and they look to be good quality as well.
For me, unfortunately, this was a false economy, as I now need to buy myself a snow-scene mat for the top of my gaming table...
Desmondo Darkin posts another game report on the IABSM Facebook site.
The Brits are advancing through Normandy, the Germans seeking to hold them up. A devastating pre-game stonk is just a preamble to the Germans getting a thorough spanking!
Click on the pic below for the AAR:
As the title of this post suggests, the TooFatLardies Painting Challenge 2018 is now open for business!
Old lags who have entered before will know the drill, but those Lardies who want to enter for the first time are advised to read the Introduction & Details page in the TFL Painting Challenge 2018 folder.
But it's really very simple. You paint, base and otherwise get a unit ready for the tabletop. You send a piccy of said unit to me at admin@vislardica.com with:
Once I have your first submission, I'll open a gallery for you. Challenge ends 31/12/18.
Note that last year it got quite, er, challenging to keep on top of things, so although I currently have no intention of doing so, I reserve the right to cap the number of participants.
Finally, we have our first entry of the year already: Matt Slade has sent in a unit of Prussian Jaegers (and bloodhound) that allegedly "finishes off the infantry for my SP Prussians". Well I think we've all heard (or said ourselves!) that before...
Here they are:
Although just being published now, this AAR covers my last game of 2017.
It's the Libyan/Egyptian border in September 1940, and the Italians have finally got their act together and invaded. A huge column snakes its way down the desert strip towards Egypt. In their way are the Coldstream Guards and their supports.
Find out how the Italians did by clicking on the picture, below.
Here's a link to a nice post about the Operation Compass scenario pack.
Yarkshire Gamer has been using the pack as the basis for his new campaign. Okay, so he's not using IABSM, but it just goes to confirm that the games in the TFL scenario packs are easily adaptable for other rule sets.
Click here to visit the Yarkshire Gamer blog.
And completely co-incidentally, I played a Compass scenario myself last week: report will be published here tomorrow morning...
Last Friday, The Centurions Wargame Group played host to fellow Lardy Mike Whitaker, who volunteered to run a demo game of IABSM. The game was held at The Source Comics and Games in the Twin Cities.
A company of infantry with armor support on each side provided an afternoon of great entertainment. Click on the pic below to see all.
Happy New Year to everyone, and I hope 2018 is good to you.
Now that I look back on 2017, I can see that my wargaming year has been a very successful one.
Here are a few highlights:
I've written and published two full IABSM scenario packs this year, both covering the German and Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 in what is known as The September War.
That's over sixty early war scenarios to play, and loads of different scenario mechanics that can be adapted for other periods.
Sales have not been amazing (not like Blenneville or Bashnya), but then how many people have an early war Polish army? It was, anyway, quite a labour of love...and I'm enjoying playing them.
2018: Blitzkrieg
Also, although there's still plenty still to do, I'm well into my next project: producing the early war theatre booklet for IABSM.
Here I'm concentrating very much on the Battle for France (and Belgium and the Nederlands), as the Polish lists are already done and available for free elsewhere on this site.
More news in the new year, but the section on the French army is already about 70 pages long!
A good year as regards painting, with three full sci-fi armies completed: the Xar, the Hura and the Tah-Sig.
On top of that, I've really fleshed out my Poles, and chewed through a couple of units that have been sitting in the lead mountain for far too long.
I didn't quite hit last year's points score in the Painting Challenge, but am within Ame's Ace of equaling it. In fact, it's fair to say that if I'd finished the half-completed unit currently in prime position on the table I'd be ahead...but then I'm writing this rather than doing that!
Much to my surprise, and with everything going on in my life apart from gaming, I've actually had more games this year than I have for any year for some time.
Still a small score (19 battles) compared to a club weekly gamer, but then I have a long commute, don't belong to a club, have a demanding family and do a lot of sport as well.
I've also written up every game except one for this site, so feel that I have been spreading the IABSM Lard as much as possible.
My thanks (and apologies if I was an a**e!) to all my opponents. Better luck next time!
Finally, just a quick note on the fortunes of this website itself.
Traffic is up year on year across all the metrics used to measure websites. That's Uniques (number of visitors), Page Views, Dwell Time etc.
For those interested, in 2017 there were about 61,500 page views from about 14,000 unique visitors (i.e. if you visit in Feb and Nov, you still only count as one unique). On average, just over 1,000 people visit the site twice each month, looking at 2.5 pages per visit.
Which is not bad going.
Key to more traffic is links on other sites, so if you do run your own blog, and enjoy Vis Lardica, please include a link in your list of recommended blogs. Let me know you've done so, and I'll plug your site on here in return.
It might be slightly more complicated to do so because I'm on Squarespace not Blogger or one of the other free hosting sites (yes, it costs me money to keep a site of this size going!) but do please try. It will help spread the Lard even further.
So, all in all, a very good year. Let's hope 2018 is even better!
Happy New Year
Robert Avery
Three entries sneaking in just before the deadline...
And here they all are:
Militia Cavalry
Monte Cassino in 20mm
Anonymous Hellenics from the Hat
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:
vislardica@gmail.com
If you have enjoyed visiting this site, please add a link to it on your own wargaming blog: www.vislardica.com.
