28mm Honvédség

With a lot of Bolt Action being played recently, I've decided it's about time I sat down and actually painted a force. The models (a platoon of Early War Germans, being used to represent Hungarian Motor Rifles) were purchased a while ago, but have been sitting around awaiting a burst of enthusiasm. Having taken a few days off work, now seemed a perfect time to make a start on them. Currently I have two squads and a MG team painted, with the third squad and officer still to go.

My Hungarian Infantry Platoon

The unpainted officer and his bodyguard

Once the painting is done the next question will be how to field them. I'm using the German army list in the main rulebook, but I haven't decided yet how to organise and equip them. Open questions;

•  Is it better to field lots of smaller units, or fewer large ones? Specifically should I have three squads of 10, or six squads of 5. The points costs are linear, so I'm inclined towards more small units.
•  Are bolt-action rifles competitive? My flatmate Nathan is firmly convinced assault rifles are better. But I've run the numbers and I think the humble rifle is just as good for it's cost.
•  How good is Veteran status? I'm going to try the army out as Regular first, but I may also try Veteran at some point. 
•  What rank should the officer be?

For my first few games I'm going to try the following list;

•  First Lieutenant (Fohadnagy) accompanied by 2 SMGs  
•  Infantry Squad with 5 rifles and AT grenades             
•  Infantry Squad with 2 LMG and 1 rifle            
•  Infantry Squad with 5 rifles and AT grenades          
•  Infantry Squad with 2 LMG and 1 rifle          
•  Infantry Squad with 5 rifles and AT grenades       
•  Infantry Squad with 2 LMG and 1 rifle         
•  MMG Team        

... all Regular, and coming to a total of 595 points. Expanding this towards 1000 points, I'd look at adding a medium mortar and/or a 75mm infantry gun. I'd like to avoid taking a tank if I can, which may mean having to grab a couple more squads of infantry.

Gold Five Standing By

Yet again I have been led into temptation by my fellow wargamers. After seeing Adam's blog post on the X-Wing miniatures game I decided to give it a closer look, and ended up walking out of Comics Compulsion with both the core set and the Y-Wing expansion. Fortunately one of the strengths of X-Wing is it is light on time commitment and not too bad on the wallet.

The models (pictured with some of the WotC collectable ships for size comparison) come pre-painted. You need around 4-6 fighters for the suggested 100 point game size. After playing a few games (a couple against my brother, one against my flatmate) I agree with Adam's assessment - it's a neat little beer and pretzels game, a bit limited in tactical depth but good for quick and fun games. The main problem it has at the moment is the lack of starship types. There are currently only the X-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE, and TIE Advanced available (and the local store is sold out of the Y-Wing and TIE Advanced). But this will be sorted as FFG release more ship types.

While the models are prepaints I'm mulling the idea of changing the colour areas to customize my fighters. The yellow on the Y-Wings would become gray, and the red on one of my X-Wings would become pink (link for those who don't get the second reference).

Despite this new temptation however I have made good progress on my 28mm Hungarians, finishing off a complete squad plus an armoured vehicle...

The walker is a "Heinrich" light walker from the Dust Warfare range. While I don't expect to field this guy very often (locally people are more interested in real-history WW2, rather than Weird War 2) it is a cool looking model and something to stand in as a (temporary) centerpiece for the force until I decide on what real-world centerpiece I want (probably either a T-38 or a 75mm infantry gun). Now I just have to wait for the rest of my infantry to arrive and start getting some games in.

Huzzar for 28mm!

World War II gaming in 28mm scale is something that has been simmering in the local group for a while now. A few different systems have been played, including Operation Squad and a WW2 mod of the Force on Force rules.

The system that I'm finding the most interesting is Bolt Action from Warlord Games. Watching Jamie and Nathan play a small (500 pt) game yesterday seemed to confirm my first impression from reading the rules; Bolt Action is a nice simple system, light on detail, but fast and playable. Encouraged by this, I sat down this afternoon and painted a first section of infantry;

The models are Warlord Games early war Germans, which I am painting as Hungarians.  The last photo shows all the infantry I currently have. A 600-800 point game of Bolt Action would involve a platoon or so of infantry, so I've just ordered two more squads, an MG34 team, and the main rulebook.

Too Many Projects

About a month ago when I finished my Epic marines, I was left with no wargaming project and wondering what to do. Since then my spending reflex has exceeded my painting speed, and I now have four or five projects on the go.

First of course is the 6mm buildings from my last blog post. An initial burst of enthusiasm finished two buildings, then faded. But they remain a priority project, since they will greatly improve my terrain for Epic and 6mm modern games.

Next came some 28mm Hungarians. Some friends have been playing 28mm WWII for a while now (using the Force on Force rules system), and since you only need a reinforced squad or so, I decided to join in.

 
The models are actually Early War Germans (from Warlord Games 'Bolt Action' range), but the kit is close enough to what the Hungarians had throughout the war. Ideally I'd like to add a Nimrod to support these guys, but finding one in 28mm is somewhere between difficult and impossible. For the short-medium term, I'll probably get a 75mm infantry gun instead.

Continuing with the 28mm theme, I'm also wanting to finish and/or revisit a couple of 28mm sci-fi armies to use with Tomorrow's War. I played my second game of TW a couple of weeks ago, against Jamie. I've got quite a range of old 40K models, but the paint job on many needs touching up or improving.

Finally, we have the latest thing to grab my interest... 6mm moderns. Pooch started things off with his Desert Storm British. Since I've always been keen to find a good moderns game, I picked up some Soviet models from GHQ. The detail on the GHQ models is simply incredible, amazingly crisp and well-cast! My only complaint is that some of the gun barrels seem quite fragile, and I can see myself having to replace tank cannons with wire once they break off. So far I've finished painting half a company of T-72's and enough BTR-60's for a supporting infantry platoon.

Rules wise, we're looking at using Epic: Armaggedon, and are in the process of writing army lists at the moment. We have unit profiles for British, Syrian, and Israeli units sorted (to a beta-test stage anyway), so now it's the hard part of coming up with some points costs. This thread on the South Island Wargaming forums has made me aware of Minigeddon (a 1,000 pt version of Epic for quick games) and I'm thinking finishing a modern army for minigeddon could be a good place to start.

Tempest 2012

This Sunday was the annual Tempest wargaming tournament, held at the Shirley/St Albans Working Men's Club. Normally a Queen's Birthday Weekend event, Tempest was held a few months early this year, and other bookings at the venue restricted it to being a one-day affair. The organiser (the hard working Stephan S) opted for 1100 points MW playing 4 games (possibly 5 time permitting, although this was always optimistic). This format was clearly well received, with 16 people turning up on the day.

My first game was a Free for Fall against Jamie's panzergrenadiers. Jamie is a regular FoW opponent of mine, but this was the first time I had faced his Germans. And he had clearly been reading the transport rules, using his "summon halftrack" ability to its full. This was a great game, impossible to call until the last turn or two. Jamie's Tiger and PaK's dominated the open spaces, but my light tanks and Nimrods managed to zip around to a concealed position near an objective. It became a race; could Jamie's Tiger kill my Pz IVs before my light tanks could kill his infantry? A few lucky shots from the Pz IVs came oh so close to killing the Tiger (which would have been essentially game to me) but on the last roll failed Firepower. In the end the Tiger won the day, killing the Pz IVs and clearing the path for a panzergrenadier platoon to sieze an objective. The final result was a 6:1 win to Jamie.

My second game was against Dave D's Tankovy, with me attacking in a Surrounded mission. This gave me a problem. My army had only one unit that could (maybe) stand up to his T-34's - my Pz IVs. Having to split my army into two sides, one side was going to be vulnerable. As I expected my T-38G's died against his T-34's... but they were able to hold them up for much longer than I expected. The combination of Veterancy, concealment, and long range let them survive for a few turns, but unfortunately not quite long enough. On the other side of the board my panzer IVs and infantry had failed to kill his SU-76's (how hard can it be to pass one, single, solitary FP test!) which delayed my assault on the objective. His T-34's were able to turn around and support the other flank just in the nick of time, denying me the objective and the game. Dave won 5:2.

Game 3 was against Nathan's Carri company in another Free for Fall. The desert table had a lot of very wide open spaces. With Nathan fielding a Lancia 90mm as a cornerstone of his force I had two choices - charge and hope massed main gun fire could take it out, or hide and try to make it irrelevant. I went with the aggressive approach, and it almost worked. Almost. Yet again I could not pass a FP test to save myself. Although I knocked out his Pz IIIs (and in hindsight I might have been better off pulling back after that) the Lancia dominated the field, and in the end Nathan won 5:2.

My 4th and last game was defending against Rick's British Heavy Armour Squadron in a No Retreat mission. At 1100 points, playing a company of medium tanks is (as Sir Humphrey would say) "courageous". With an entire army consisting of 11 units (8 Shermans and 3 Carriers) Rick had to make the most of every tank... although in fairness, each of those Shermans were a match for the strongest unit (the Pz IV F2) in my army. But my Ambush with Panzer IVs turned the game. While Rick preventing me from getting flank shots, a close range barrage knocked out a platoon of Shermans. Two turns later, the Veteran panzers firing from concealment finished off the second Sherman platoon, while the Nimrods had finished off the carriers. With just his HQ left Rick failed a company motivation roll, and it was a 6:1 game to me.

Tempest was the first FoW tournament I have attended in a long time (since I don't have a LW army, and on principal avoid strict Axis vs. Allies events), and it was great fun. While I'll probably give the next Christchurch FoW event a miss (LW, not interested), Conquest is doing an El Alamein theme which sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

Eastern Front, June 1942...

Played my second game of Flames of War V3 last night at the club. I was using my Gepkocsizo Lovesz Szazad (Hungarian motor rifle) company, facing off against Jamie's Rota Radzveki (Soviet armoured recon).

My army consisted of; the company HQ (2 independent teams), 2 infantry platoons (each 10 stands), a heavy tank platoon (3 Panzer IV F2), a light tank platoon (5 T-38), a self-propelled AA platoon (2 Nimrods), and sporadic air support. Against this Jamie had; a tank company (9 T-34's, including 3 T-34/57), an assault gun company (4 SU-122), two Rota platoons (15 stands transported in 5 halftracks), and a self-propelled AA platoon (3 DShk trucks).

We rolled randomly for mission, and got Surrounded. I was defending so I deployed an infantry platoon dug in on each objective, put my light armour an Nimrods in the center ready to move were they were needed, and my heavy armour in immediate ambush. Jamie deployed one rota platoon in each end of the table, his mortars to my right... and all of his armour to my left. My immediate ambush deployed behind some hedges near one of the infantry platoons, ready to move to engage his armour.

My deployment - two infantry platoons on objectives, with light armour in the middle

Jamie's armour, massed to my left

As attacker Jamie got first turn. His armour advanced towards my far infantry platoon, although (with the +1 to hit from the new H&C rule) he couldn't shoot them this turn. His rota platoon to my right cautiously advanced, while the rota to my left cautiously pulled back. During my turn my air support failed to turn up, my Panzer IVs moved towards his tanks, and my Nimrods and T-38's moved right to ward off the advancing rota platoon.

Over the next few turns our medium tanks duelled around the center of the table. While I was surprised how well my tanks did when outnumbered 4:1 (I had forgotten how much of a difference Veteran status makes in FoW), by about turn 5 my panzer IVs had been eliminated. However they had knocked out 5 T-34s before they went, leaving the company too weak to assault my infantry by themselves.

T-34's and Panzer IVs duelling

At this point (about turns 6-7) my light tanks (which, having forced the right-hand rota to back off, had moved back to support the now-struggling left flank) made a suicide charge. With 4 T-34's and 4 SU-122's hanging around there was no way they would survive... but I figured if they could cut the rota platoon down enough, Jamie would not have enough to push my infantry off the objective. As expected the died, but took about six stands of rota with them before they went.

Charge of the light platoon - my T-38's advancing to certain doom

The last turn saw Jamie's forces line up for a final push. With with my infantry platoon having 8 stands left (including 3 pancelvadaz) against 2 lots of 4 tanks, plus around 10 stands of rota, I thought I still had a (small) chance of victory. Sadly it was not to be - a lucky shell from one of Jamie's armour units killed my company commander.With me having lost 3 out of 5 platoons that was automatic company motivation fail, and game to Jamie.

Endgame - Jamie's forces massed around my infantry platoon

So a good hard fought game, and a deserved win to Jamie. Some observations...

•  First impression, I like the new H&C rules. It still limits the Soviets, but in a way that encourages movement. I want to play a few more games against it before making a final judgement (and there is the question of whether the existing points costs are balanced under the new rule), but in this game I thought they worked really well.
•  I hadn't played the Surrounded mission before, but (and again this is first impression) I like it. Simple, slightly different, and seems well balanced.
• Sporadic air support giving only a single, solitary aircraft over an 8 turn game! Bah. 

An Unexpected Christmas...

Last night I dragged down a few boxes from the top of my wardrobe. They look like they were packed when I moved flat around two years ago, and may or may not have been opened since. Amoung all the trash and treasure the was a bunch of wargaming models I'd completely forgotten I had.


The most immediately useful for my current top project (Mid-War Hungarians) is a Stuka and a trio of Botond trucks, all BF resin models and undercoated black. I've always been short on trucks for the weapons platoons of my motor infantry company. But since I never used to take HMGs and the mortars very seldom wanted to move, it wasn't an issue. But with the improved utility of transports and the fact that I will now want to field my HMG platoon, I think I'll finish painting them up. Likewise the Stuka. I have sometimes taken air support before (in fact I already have a Stuka in Hungarian colours...somewhere) but with it's increased effectiveness in V3 I suspect I'll be taking it more often.

I also found my Hungarian cavalry unit. These aren't an option in Eastern Front unfortunately, but I'll keep them with the rest of the army in case Battlefront releases a MW version of the Huszár Harckocsizó list.

The next surprise find was a regiment of Witch-Elves, with 8 out of 19 painted. Now I'll rant against GW with the best of them, but I have always felt that WHFB (at least 7E, I haven't played 8th yet) was a decent ruleset. It gets let down by very poorly balanced army lists and GW's general business practises, but the core system was pretty good. I have promised my friend Haig (who is a big WHFB fan) to give 8th Edition at least a couple of games try.  And since Witch-Elves are one of the units that made me decide on Dark Elves as my army in the first place, it's going on the list of projects to be finished. Not as top priority, but it's definitely on the list.

And the last find... 25 IG Stormtroopers, five each painted in red and purple, the rest undercoated. Red squad also has an officer and a transport vehicle to accompany them, while purple squad has a dozen cultists and a chaos sorcerer.

Now I think WH40K is a terrible system with almost nothing to recommend it, but I've always been more of a sci-fi than a historical/fantasy fan, and I've just had 3 squads worth of quality future infantry effectively fall in my lap. So I'm now itching to find a good 28mm sci-fi skirmish game. Does anybody have any recommendations? I'll rule out Stargrunt - to avoid a rant I'll just say it's not what I'm looking for.

And now for Something Completely Different...

Although you wouldn't know it from my blog to date, I play a range of different wargames. Dystopian Wars has been the in thing for the past couple of months, but I also play Epic:Armaggedon, Flames of War, Battlefleet Gothic... I even have armies for Warhammer (Dark Elves) and 40K (Guard) sitting around somewhere, although I haven't played either of these for ages.

With the release of Flames of War 3rd Edition this month it seemed a suitable time to go back and touch up my Hungarian army. So I laid it all out on the table and had a good, critical look at the quality and condition of the paint job. Looking at it with fresh eyes, I give it a 6/10. It's not bad, but there are touchups to do and extra detailing to be done.

I can field two company types for Hungarians. I started with a Harckocsizo Szazad (Tank Company), mostly because IMO the Nimrod is a strong contender for coolest looking armoured vehicle ever.

The full Harckocsizo Szazad

Platoon of T-38G tanks	First armour platoon, overhead	Panzer IV F2's - my heavy hitters
Nimrod AA vehicles	Nimrods again	Toldi light tanks

One of the support platoons I often take for my tanks is a motorised infantry platoon, and this provided the starting point for my second Hungarian company - a Gepkocsizo Lovesz Szazad (Motorised Infantry Company)

The full Gepkocsizo Lovesz Szazad, with weapons platoons but not divisional support

Puskas (infantry platoon)	Puskas again	81mm Mortar platoon
HMGs from the weapons platoon	PaK40 Antitank Guns	105mm Artillery Battery

So that's almost all of my Hungarian army, and it's pretty much complete.I have some short Panzer IVs and Panzer IIIs still to repaint from German grey, and I might get some Csaba armoured cars, but apart from this I can field basically all the options from the army lists that I would want to.