Tunbridge Wells, Cavalier 2011

This Sunday saw the Cavalier wargames show at the Angel Centre in Tonbridge. It seemed quieter than it has previously, but this was not all bad as the games seemed more spaced out and there was some room to move around. This saw the last outing for Tanenburg/Grunwald and we had a fun game and again had a fair amount of interest.
The best demonstration games was won by Loughton Stroke Force with a beautiful WW2 next to us. There were even actual sewers built into the boards. It looked wonderful.
The best participation was a clever little game based on the raid on Taranto by the Royal Navy on 1940. A simple board with mono-chrome harbour to give the night feel and some nice models with clever interchangeable height markers. A really simple set of rules that were fun to play and hosted by some enthusiast and knowledgeable club members who thoroughly deserved the prize.

Club Night 25th February

On Friday, Duncan joined me for his first game of 40k in a very long time. He has lots of Cryx for Warmachine and so used them as proxies for Daemons (with some nifty labels so we all knew what was what and there where no surprises!).

Our first game was an annihilation mission which I feared would play into the Daemons hands. Luck began to play to my advantaged though as the Bloodletters and one of the Daemon princes tied to deep strike near my men and failed so I was able to place them far from my troops. However his Plague-bearers arrived near my Dark Reapers and immediately attacked the Howling Banshees who had deployed to defend them. Despite the power weapons the great toughness made this very difficult.

This however freed up the Masque to attack the Reapers themselves while the Scorpions dispatched the surviving Daemonettes after they had been whittled down by Guardian fire. They then joined the Shining Spears in destroying their second Bloodthirster (they had destroyed one in the game against the Warlords) before moving on to help out the Banshees.

The Bloodletters and the second greater daemon had now gathered and began to attack the Guardians. Despite the withering fore they made it in and inflicted casualties and wiped them out.

As they pushed into the defensive line the game came to an end with victory for the Eldar.We had time for a second game, this time based around capturing objectives. After a vicious and bloody fight involving numerous close combats both sides were decimated and neither could claim victory, although as I had the only unit of troops on the table I claimed I could actually win while tar Daemons could not.

Painting Blood Angels

Inspired by our big 40k game recounted here I have finally made a proper start on my Blood angles successor chapter, originally to be called Sons of Sanguinius, now possibly the Sons of Baal or the Choir of Baal. Still don't need to decide just yet. The plan with these is to paint them faily flat and quickly and use Army Painter to finish them off, so I broke out my Citadel spray gun and my compressor and my new spray booth and set to work.

Above: Some Marines base coated in GW Foundation paint Red,
Below:The honour guard in gold and Librarian in blue

Above: The first part of the force base coated,
Below:a close up of the force

Above: Honour gaurd after a thin brown wash to add some depth and guide painting,
Below: The complete force, with half having received a spray of blood red from above to rich up the colour and provide some deep shading where the foundation red shows through.

Above: Close up of the Blood Red sprayed force
Below: Death company finished except for bases and Army painter. Detail picked out and some hard edge highlighting applied to weapons and armour, but otherwise flat colour.

Above: More of the Death Company ,
Below: A Death company member (the flash has changed the colour slightly)

Above & Below: More close ups of the death company

Club Night 11th February

Despite the mass FoWing recently I had actually arranged another game with Mike. Fortunately it was a bit different from all our recent desert forays set in late war Northern Europe. I was borrowing a mix of Mike and Ricks figures to try out a Gepanzert Panzerpioeer company and Mike wanted to try out his new 7th Armoured division force.

We generated a fairly open table and I found myself as the defender in a fighting withdrawal, so promptly sent all those half tracks I had to the rear so they didn't get killed. As engineers with some supply trucks I was able to string some minefields across in front of two of the objectives and hid the last behind a river.

The British advanced and I immediately sprung my ambush using my platoon of Stugs which devastated one of their Cromwell platoons. We continued to be able to slow down their advance with the fire of these Stugs for most of the game while our infantry stayed dug in with their heads down other than the occasional, and unsuccessful, although amusing attack launched using Goliath remote controlled vehicles. The reluctant nature of 7th armoured was really making a difference if we brewed them up, and our single mortar tubes where enough to pin down and delay their infantry support too.

However time was not on our side and we had to start removing some forces and the British bravely launched their self propelled artillery forward to give them some more manoeuvrable units, and with all the command stand making the unit stronger the few losses the vehicles took, led by the 2iC, didn't break them and they pushed pass the minefield and closed on the objectives, but too late as they were removed.

Meanwhile they had managed to cross the stream with their Cromwells and were threatening the one objective we could not remove. As their final turn arrived it looked like victory was to be the Germans, but I managed to fail a save and have a stand machine gunned out of its foxholes. Now began the first of three critical dice rolls. The first was the platoon morale which I managed to pass. Next was the start of the 8th and final German turn, first was a last man standing roll for the platoon that has taken the loss which I failed, removing the platoon. Worse this meant I had to take a company morale check, which I promptly failed, meaning we just fell short of checking victory conditions in turn 8 which would have given us victory.

A hard fought and really enjoyable game. Now I just have to find a way I can afford all those half tracks for myself!

Club Sunday 6th February

Sunday saw a great gathering of warriors ready to fight in the North African desert as Operation Crusader continued. With so many players I decided as supreme commander I would not play, but helpfully lend advice where it was not needed and oversee my grand plan!

Rick and Steve D saw each other across the table again, this time with Rick conducting a fighting withdrawal which he did successfully, holding the British advance.

Steve K played the role of the British while Steve H and Simon attacked him. First was a breakthrough by 21st Panzer. After some initial bad luck the Germans were on the back foot and defeated, a second attack by 15th Panzer met with similar results, although got very close.

Finally on the third table Chris D and Duncan conducted two excellent defences with 90th Light, first against a South African infantry attack which they decimated, and then against an armoured attack which pushed them closer, but they still held.

With the first round of battle almost completed, no attack had yet been successful, but, I hope tellingly, the British lost a number of support units and had a number of units battered, while the Axis forces came off slightly better. All that is left is for an Italian attack on Tobruk and then the exploitation moves and turn 2 will be complete.

Club Night 4th February

We kicked off Luke's Operation Crusader campaign with the initial moves of the British trying to turn the line south of Bardia and the Axis committing Ariete into a spoiling attack. As this was the only battle we had we decided to play three game with the same forces, but different terrain and missions and play the best of three for the campaign result.

Rick met Steve D with a meeting engagement and by pressing forward managed to win his battle. Steve H and Mike took on Steve K in the same mission, but this time the Allies seized the initiative and won the day. So with one battle left this would be the decider. And with each side having decided which table they would fight on without knowing their opponent I came up against my old adversary Luke.

However it was not to be my evening as Luke was defending with numerous 2 and 25 pounders in a Cauldron scenario and all I had was armour to throw at him, which I valiantly did, but to no avail. The British had won the first battle and held the Italian attack.

This left the supreme commanders to make their next moves. I fortunately won the initiative for the redeployment phase and was able to deploy the Germans and Trieste using the escarpments to extend my lines to prevent any further unopposed British attack. As we moved on to out combat actions I launched 21st and 15th panzer into attacks on the British right, while on their left, south of Tobruk they attacked Ariete and 90th Light divisions. These battle would be resolved on the Sunday.