BG Kursk and more painting

Force on Force game

In my last post I forgot to mention the games played at the Devon Wargames gathering.  Two games were run, 25mm Force on Force and 15mm Battlegroup Kursk.  The Force on Force game looked quite bloody, with Americans taking on local militia types I think.  I can't tell you much about it as I partook of the Kursk game.  Russians and Germans in a meeting engagement.

BG Kursk table

The Germans had 3 PzIV, 1 PzIII flampanzer, 3 Tigers, 2 Grenadier platoons, 1 HQ, 1 AA halftrack, a radio vehicle, 3 armoured cars, a recon platoon in Sd250s and lots of artillery.  This gave them 7 recon units and 3 timed barrages plus a timed Fw190 attack and 2 priority barrages.

The Russians had 2 Infantry platoons with attached howitzers, 45mm AT guns, HMGs and either AA MG or AT Rifle.  They also had 2 76mm AT guns, 10 T-34s, 3 T-70s, HQ, NKVD officer and 2 priority barrages.  No recon was included, at all.  This lack turned out to heavily influence the game as the Germans promptly secured 3 objectives and out scouted the Russians, giving them 4 morale counters before the game had even started.  We got the artillery wrong, which slowed the Russian advance a lot, but we still had a good game.  Lessons learnt were that you always need some recon, especially in a meeting engagement, German barrages are cheap, Russian barrages are nasty, T-70s are tough little beggars, German armoured cars aren't and Nathan will always take Tiger tanks if he can (but I already knew that).  I don't think its worth taking attached guns with Russian infantry if you are moving, much better to have more support or additional tanks.

Painting wise I have been pretty productive so far this year.  I have finished another 32 15mm figures, taking my total to 143 so far this year, which isn't bad for the 18th of January.  That doesn't include the 25mm figures and buildings either.  Next on the list are some 15mm Dutch-Belgian cavalry, the first of six units of 16 will be going on the painting sticks tomorrow.

Tonight I shall mostly be playing World of Tanks, so watch out for Grass_Hopper in his mighty MS-1 of DOOM!

Keep rolling those dice and I'll catch you next week.