Another great battle report from Burt Minorrot's excellent Spanish-language blog Las Partidas de Burt. As I have said before, I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing it here.
Here, in a game dating back to 2014, Burt and friends fight a battle on the eastern front: a Soviet column advances against hidden German opposition.
Click on the pic for more:
A nice little battle report posted on the IABSM Facebook page by Desmondo Darkin.
Club night down at the South London Warlords, and the Germans are trying to take back to bridges from British Paras.
Click on the pic below to see all...
Vaggelis Miliarakis recently added a number of photographs of a 1/160 game of IABSM using the first Bashnya or Bust scenario to the IABSM Hellas (Greece) Facebook group.
Click on the pic below to see all:
A bit of a shameless plug, but here are some of the comments made around the web about my latest work: the Blitzkrieg in the West: Germany handbook for IABSM, published Thursday 10th May:
John Ewing:
"An awesome piece of work. The level of detail is incredible."
Charles Eckart:
"Turned on computer a couple of hours ago. Went to TFL website immediately looking for Blitz-Germany. Only time for a quick scan through: outstanding!
"IABSM was my first Lard rules (still a favorite) and all four Blitz books provide the best single sources of information for 1940 I know of. Useful in many ways, thanks for your work."
Benito Marisa:
"I have bought the four books and they [are] the best thing since sliced bread. Not a player of IABSM myself but the detail and depth of the information is so good that can be used for any other set of rules or just for reference. Excellent job, congratulations."
Desmondo Darkin:
"Looks superb"
Derek Hodge (chief proof-reader of the handbook):
"I've had a head start on the reading this as I helped Robert with the proofreading and I can say that he's put a huge amount of work into it. I had no idea that German OOBs in 1940 were so varied.
"The whole Blitzkreig in the West series is an absolutely fantastic resource for any wargamer interested in the 1940 campaign. You can use the lists in the pdfs to build OOBs at any level from company to division.
"And the lists are also useful if you're playing a platoon level game such as Chain of Command as they enable you to see exactly where all the various support options come from. This is invaluable if you're trying to build support lists limited to what was historically available to any specific infantry platoon."
Nick Skinner (co-author of IABSM):
"More superb work from Mr Avery. Can't recommend it highly enough. Even if you do not game IABSM the unit information is astounding."
Blitzkrieg in the West: Germany is the fourth in my series of early war handbooks for I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum. The handbook is a massive 185 pages long (over double the size of either the French, BEF or Low Countries books) and covers the whole of the German army that invaded France and the Low Countries on 10th May 1940, seventy-eight years ago today.
The book begins with the humble infantry: not one, homogenous, grey-clad mass, but actually eleven different types of infantry division, each with their own set of core and support troops.
Next, after a quick look at the infantry that doesn't fit into the above (e.g. the Gebirgsjaeger), the book moves on to the ten panzer divisions: with each panzer division given its own section and set of lists. There are, for example, five different lists that relate to 9th Panzer Division alone.
After the Panzertruppen, the book covers the cavalry, the SS and the army level support troops (that's where you'll find the StuGs!) before finishing off with the Fallschirmjaegers and Air Landing troops that dropped into Belgium and the Netherlands. Finally, we have the usual ratings and armoury sections, and a note on air support.
Although designed for IABSM, Blitzkrieg in the West: Germany contains a vast amount of information useful to gamers of other systems, and is really a must-buy for anyone interested in the early war period.
Available now from the TooFatLardies website, we've kept the price at £8.40: the same as the other three handbooks, despite its much larger pagination. That should make the set of four books - France, the BEF, the Low Countries, Germany - absolutely affordable for all.
I took advantage of the bank holiday weekend to finally finish the company of early war Polish tanks that I have been working on.
A Company of Polish 7TP (jw) tanks from 1st or 2nd Tank Battalion
I say a company, but actually I painted twenty-two of the little blighters: sixteen as the single-turret model, and six as the double-turret model.
That gives me the flexibility to field a company of tanks from the 1st and 2nd Tank Battalions (all single-turret); most of the 3rd Tank Battalion (one reduced company of single-turret, one reduced company of double-turret); or (given a little bit of leeway in counting 7TPs as the Vickers tank they were based on) the mixed platoons of 12th or 121st Tank Companies.
Either the 12th or 121st Independent Tank Companies: 7TPs used as Vickers
The models are all 15mm from Battlefront via Element Games. Undercoated in Army Painter green, then with the pale yellow and then the brown camouflage on top. The same basic camouflage pattern was used for each tank. Then washed and dry-brushed to bring up the detail.
Note that I had another varnish disaster in the initial spray. Not the varnish's fault, on this occasion, but mine. It was very hot, and I didn't shake the can properly, so got a light frosting of propellant/bad varnish. How did I solve it? As I've mentioned before, a light coat of olive oil got rid of the frosting, then another two sprays brought the models down flat again. A close call!
First time IABSM player Thomas Sloan decided to start with scenario #2B; Sorok from the Bashnya or Bust! scenario pack.
An advance party of Germans have to clear some Soviets out of the path of their advancing column. Find out whether they do by clicking on the pic, below:
Just to give my latest handbook for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum a little pre-publicity, I got the cover through from Rich today.
The handbook will be available from the TooFatLardies website on May 10th (next Thursday) and weighs in at over 180 pages!
The good news is that despite its huge size (over twice as big as the other handbooks in the series) we're not making it more expensive than the other books: it will be the same price as the French, the BEF and the Dutch/Belgians.
The handbook will cover the German army that invaded France and the Low Countries in May 1940. It will contain lists for each of the ten different types of infantry division, each of the ten different Panzer Divisions, the cavalry, the SS, the Fallies, the army troops...you name it, it's in there!
A great after action report from Iain Fuller from his excellent Tracks and Threads blog.
A new wargaming shed is christened as Iain and friends lead a force of Canadians against the Germans in Normandy.
Click on the pic below to read all:
Tony Cane has been working his way through the Operation Compass scenario pack for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum. His last post featured the tank battle at Mechili, this one covers the Australian attack on the Italian aerodrome at Siret el Chrieba.
Here, the Australians are faced by a huge expanse of open ground (“flat as a table and devoid of cover” as the official history puts it) dotted with the occasional hanger or building. Their target is to take the hangar and buildings on the other side of the open ground.
Click on the picture below to see how they do...
Loving the aircraft hanger and the dust-covered Blinds!
A few posts ago I mentioned that I had bought a whole company of Polish 7TP tanks, plus six extras for the dw version, from Battlefront via Element Games. It was now time to build the little blighters.
The jw single-turret versions are very easy to build: all you have to do is add a commander and hatch to the top of the turret, the gun to the front of the turret, the correct turret base plate to the main body of the tank, and then the tracks to either side.
There is, however, one thing to watch out for. There is a spot on the left hand side of the hull, towards the front, where the resin is very thin and very weak. Fully six of the twenty-two models I constructed either came out of the packet with this bit chipped away, or broke there as I glued the left hand track on.
Here's a picture to show what I mean:
Now with the turret on, and after painting, these gaps probably won't be noticeable on the tabletop, but it's enough of a hole to make me think about reaching for the green stuff. Six out of twenty-two tanks broken in this way (about half out of the packet like that, about half caused by me until I realised how careful you need to be) isn't a very good score from Battlefront.
In my earlier post, I did mention that building twenty-two of the same type of tank would be a good opportunity to check quality control. You've got the above weak resin spot, but were there any more problems?
Well unfortunately there were. Two of the twenty-two had genuine mis-casts or breakages, as shown in the pics below:
So if we count half the tanks with the weak spot gone (i.e. blame me for the other half) and add the two shown above, that's five out of twenty-two packs or 22% damaged items.
22% or about one in every five.
That's much worse than I was expecting.
So, Battlefront, and it gives me no pleasure at all to say this, you have an amazing range of great-looking kits but, given availability of the tank I want, I will always go for Zvezda and/or Plastic Soldier Company before you: not because I particularly like plastic tanks, but because your quality control is so rubbish. Simples.
Here's a final picture of the end of the build:
James Mantos posted a few photos of his latest game of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum onto the IABSM Facebook page.
It's action on the eastern front: click on the pic below to see all:
You can also check out James' blog here.
Ton Cane and friends recently fought the Mechili scenario from the Operation Compass pack using 10mm miniatures.
The game is a tank-vs-tank battle, with the Italians actually attacking for a change.
Click on the picture below to see how the game went:
Always nice to see some of the IABSM scenario packs in use, especially "Operation Compass", as it's one of my favourites.
Fellow gamer Yarkshire Gamer is working his way through the pack but using his own house rules rather than I Ain't Been Shot, Mum.
Click on the pick below to see his latest AAR...
It's been far too long since we saw one of Mark Luther's amazing 6mm IABSM after action reports...but I'm pleased to be able to say that the drought is over.
Mark played one of my scenarios - Wave Goodbye - taken from the 2011 TFL Summer Special: a French armor counterattack is hitting the flank of a German panzer column in an area east of the Ardennes in May 1940.
Click on the pic below to see all:
A very quick battle report from James Manto, taken from the IABSM Facebook Group.
Here, James gets a chance to get all his lovely new Soviet stuff onto the tabletop for the first time.
Click on the pic below to see all.
Those of you who live in the UK may be aware that the Wyevale Garden Centres always sell off their winter model Christmas trees in early January (see previous post here). This year, I’d taken full advantage of the sale and bought several packets worth, and then added a new snow mat from Tiny Wargames to put them on. Now all I needed was an excuse to get everything onto the tabletop, and a game this Saturday just gone gave me the opportunity to do so.
As I seemed to have bought lots of trees, it would need to be a big game. Out came the extra bit of table, giving me an 8’ by 5’ playing area, on went the new mat, and on went the new trees. The result: a winter wonderland of epic proportions.
This was to be a Soviet/German encounter battle set sometime in and around January 1944. As I found myself short of time in the preparation stages, I used the troop lists from one of the scenarios from the IABSM Bashnya or Bust scenario pack. A couple of the scenarios give listings of a re-inforced company for each side from which the players pick a number of platoons. As this was to be a big game, I used those lists but gave each side the entire list, not just a proportion of the list.
See how we got on by clicking on the picture, below...
Real life and all the work I have been doing on the IABSM early war handbooks has kept me away from the painting table recently, especially as what currently lurks there is the company of 15mm PSC late war Germans with all their camouflage and bits of kit...so, it was a relief to actually sit down and paint something else.
What did I paint, I hear you ask? A company of this? A company of that?
Regrettably not: I managed one 15mm tank!
I was reading the IABSM BEF handbook and realised that I only had two Matilda I's painted and ready to go and, as all those of you who have kindly purchased the handbook will know, they came in troops of three tanks.
I did, however, have a Zvezda Matilda I in the lead mountain. Not sure why...but I think it might have been an impulse purchase using up the last few pennies at Warfare last year rather than anything considered.
Anyway, I had one and I needed one, so built and painted it in a couple of hours.
The kit snaps together in about twenty seconds and, as you can see, paints up to be perfectly serviceable for the wargames table. I paid £1.95 for it, so very cost-effective for a tank that won't get used very often.
How does it compare to the Battlefront version?
Well, it's slightly smaller, particularly in the delicacy of the tracks, but not enough to make a difference at a distance of 3ft or so.
I am quite a fan of the Zvezda models. They are a great way of affordably fielding large numbers of tanks. Recommended.
I'm very pleased to announce that the third in the series of early war handbooks for I Ain't Been Shot, Mum, Blitzkrieg in the West: the Low Countries, is now available from the TFL website.
The handbook is 88 pages long (bigger than either the French or BEF books) and contains two separate sections: one on the Belgian army of 1940, and one on the Dutch army of 1940.
The Belgian section contains sixteen separate lists covering everything from the Active divisions through to the Cavalry and then on to the Chasseurs Ardennais and Border Guards. There's also a section on the forts and bunkers positioned along the Belgian border.
The Dutch section contains seventeen separate lists covering everything from the First Line divisions through to the Light and Peel divisions through to the three independent brigades, the cavalry and the various territorial commands. There's also a short section on the defence of the main airfields and another on the defence of Rotterdam.
Both the Belgian and Dutch sections contain a lot of background information, so the handbook should be very useful for players of other game systems as well.
And don't forget the other two handbooks that are already available:
As one review on the TFL website says about the BEF handbook:
Picked this up this morning – I got the French one last month. Absolutely brilliant resource that I really look forward to using. Can’t wait for the German one. *****
Jonathan
I was browsing the 'net, as one does, and came across David Burden's excellent blog Converj.
On there was an equally excellent account of his first game of IABSM: a solo game split across four or five posts and using the North of Caen scenario from the rulebook.
I hope he doesn't mind (as I haven't found a way of e-mailing him) but I've merged his posts into one AAR for you all to enjoy.
Click on the pic below to see all, and make sure you visit David's blog to see the other good stuff on there.
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
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