IABSM AAR: Piotrkow Trybunalski

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Just written up an AAR from the game we played yesterday using scenario #45 from the second September War scenario pack: the battle of Piotrkow Trybunalski.

A big game covering the actions of 5th September 1939 as the Germans drive down from the Borowska Heights.

Each side fielded a company of infantry and tanks, with the game taking about 3½ hours.

Click on the pic below for more:

IABSM AAR: Eastern Front

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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:

Blitzkrieg in the West: The Germans: comments so far...

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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 Now Available

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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.

A Company of Polish Tanks: Finally Finished

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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!

Blitzkrieg in the West: The Germans: Cover Revealed

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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!

IABSM AAR: Operation Compass #18: Siret el Chrieba

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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 Company of Tanks: The Build

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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:

IABSM AAR: Wave Goodbye!

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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:

IABSM AAR: Winter Wonderland

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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...