Duel in the Dark plus more Zombies

The outin-laws were down for the weekend(3 extra women and a baby), so on Saturday I picked Pingu up and we went over to see Nathan for a few games of Duel in the Dark.  We managed 3 games, with Pingu and I being the Luftwaffe while Nathan was the RAF.  It's a deceptively involved game, it looks really simple for the German to win but it's not!  I kept running out of fuel in my night-fighters as the wind did it's best to screw us over in 2 of the games.  End result was 1 big win each side, with the decider being a 1 point win for the Germans. 

The Germans have 4 night-fighters and various "defence resources", such as flak, searchlight, fire trucks etc.  These have to be placed without knowing the objective, while the British have to preplan the bombing mission without knowing where the defences are.  Then there's the annoying Mosquito, which can score points by shooting night-fighters, can suppress defences or mark the target to give the Bombers bonus points when the reach the objective.

It is a juggling game for the Germans, as they can't catch the bombers if they get left behind, but also need to refuel at the most inopportune moment.

It's a cracking game though and is a good way to fill a few hours.  Well worth the £15 I paid for it.  The pictures are stolen from boardgame geek as I didn't take any while we were playing.


 I even managed to get a bit of painting done, mostly in the dark hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep as I felt too sick.  Nine "Toxic" and 8 normal zombies have joined the ever increasing ranks of painted Zombicide figures.  I quite enjoyed painting these in the dark and quiet hours as it gave my ears a chance to recover from the constant, endless chatter that the multitudinous women of this family make.  There were 7 of them here on Saturday evening and they can all seemingly talk without needing to breath in, ever!  They spent all day together, yet still managed to talk non-stop all evening.  My ears were bleeding by 8pm and they kept on talking until past midnight.

Today would be a nice, quiet day as they have left but they are digging up the road outside the house now, so it's a bit noisy with tarmac strippers and pneumatic drills going.  So today I shall mostly be wearing my headphones.  Have fun and I'll catch you later

Attack, Zulu's and random ramblings

Last Sunday I was taken out for the day by my chaffeur Nathan, with Pingu in the back "resting his eyes".  No matter where we go, what time we go or who drives, he has a nap, poor old fella.

Bless him, he looks all worn out.  It must have been the vast amount he didn't spend at Attack.  It was a pleasant day out, but we are not sure we will be going back as it takes as long to get there as it does to get to Reading which is a bigger show.  My purchases were limited to a can of Necrotic Flesh spray paint for zombie painting and a copy of Duel in the Dark on the bring & buy.  Oh, and some extra D10s for In her Majesties Name.


Monday night was Zulu night, as the Chuckadice lads got together to refight Nathan's Rorke's Drift scenario.  Zulus under the command of myself, Andy and Pingu were attacking the defenders, commanded by Lt Chard(Zob), Lt Bromhead(Colin) and Colour Sgt Bourne(Nathan).
 Suffice to say, the heavy fire from the hospital quickly drove off the few Zulu's in front of them, but the lesser fire from the store only slowed down the advance.  Eventually the Zulu's reached the building and some redcoats were felled.

On the other side the British line looked pretty solid and was holding well for longer than expected.

 Andy looks pensive as he prepares to receive the British fire.  Not much cover down there, so losses were pretty heavy as the Zulu's advanced.

 The store is attacked, as only a few men could fire out the loopholes. 

 Zulu's reach the defences, but were unable initially to break through the line.  Bayonets lunged and Zulu's fell, but the occasional Redcoat fell too.

 Zulu's get around the side and into the building, but its a dead end and the British fired through the window, killing the Zulu warriors. 

 The 2nd wave reaches the defenders, again taking horrendous losses.  Eventually the British will weaken, won't they?

Sniping from the hill finally took effect, with 3 hits on the British reserves as they finished the redoubt and moved to reinforce the wall.

 Bromhead's line was also holding firm, despite Pingu's best efforts to break through.  He did manage to break in momentarily, but Bromhead gathered a few men and drove the Zulu's back out again.

At the same time the Zulu's broke into the main store rooms, driving the few defenders back wounded.  It's was starting to look a bit problematic for the Brits, but at least Chard was holding his section......

Then Chard was driven back suddenly as all his men fall to some damned lucky dice from Andy.  Four d10, 3 of them were 8+, killing 3 defenders and forcing Chard to retreat.  This is were we left it, to be finished next Monday.  The Zulu's are in the compound and threatening the store, but the British still have quite a few men left and should hold, probably......well maybe......



In other news, I have been sick as a dog again.  The new anti-nausea tablets I am on are rubbish so it's back to see the quack again this week.  Hopefully something will sort out soon, as it's impacting work quite noticeably now.  I have managed to paint a few bits, so expect some pictures next week hopefully.

Off now so catch you all later.

Bag the Hun 2 again

Last night saw B Flight of 605 Squadron go into action.  Flt Lt "Bunny" Noel was in command as Blue 1 with FO "Pingers" Pengilly leading Green section.  They came in behind the bandits, which turned out to be 9 Ju87 Stukas with an escort of 4 Bf110s.

 Initial moves saw the Messerschmitts try to block the attacking Hurricanes and fail miserably.  Green section dove straight past them and latched onto the tails of 3 of the Stuka's while Blue section lagged a bit, but came in on the flank.  As Green section opened fire.....

...bits of two Stuka's went raining down.  Pingers was the only one who failed to down his target, but PO Flynn and Sgt Henderson both destroyed their Stuka's.  Unfortunately the twin explosions proved too much for Pingers and he lost control of his normal stable Hurricane.

 With Pingers heading down struggling to regain his equilibrium, Blue 3 latched onto his erstwhile target and, with a highly accurate burst of fire, blew it to pieces.  Three down and the Messerschmitts were struggling to get anywhere near either the Hurricanes or the Stuka's.

  Pingers managed to regain control and strove to return to action while Bunny did his best to get in amongst them, but was slowed down by the attentions of a vengeful Messerschmitt.  Some nice manoeuvering shook off the heavy fighter, but it took him away from the action.  Luckily PO Henry(Blue 2) and Sgt Patterson(Blue 3) had better luck and both bagged a Stuka, giving Patterson 2 kills.

Sgt Henderson also got a 2nd and damaged a 3rd before his guns ran out of ammo, with PO Flynn also getting in and bagging a 2nd kill before the Stuka's broke away and the Hurricanes left the Messerschmitts behind.  

All in all it was a bad day for the Luftwaffe, with 7 Stuka's going down and another one damaged for no RAF losses, or even any damage.  Luckiest bugger of the night was "Bunny" Noel, who managed to survive being hit 5 times by a Messerschmitt 110 by rolling 5+ on 5 dice out of 8.

After day one the squadron has racked up 8 kills and 4 probables at the cost of 2 damaged, but repairable, Hurricanes.  PO Flynn has even been awarded the DFC for his endeavors on the day. 

Thanks to Andy and Pingu for playing, I enjoyed it and look forward to the next missions in a few weeks time.

July in Exeter

 Saturday was the monthly meeting of the Devon Wargames Group, which is probably the nicest gathering of lunatics you will ever find.  I managed to make it there this month, although it wiped me out for Sunday and this morning, but it was well worth it.  Two games were on this time, with Chas putting on a Kenyan game using Chain of Command.

 This is the Kenyan table, British coming from the right and Communists on the left.  No idea what the scenario was as I was rather busy getting my men shot on the other table.




Here you can see some of the nasty rebellious Communist types sneakily sneaking through the bush.  Damned sneaky types!

 Ah, the gallant defenders of afternoon tea, Wimbledon and cricket have quietly arrived in their armoured vehicles.  Nothing like some Saracens to pacify the rebellious locals.

 The sneaky types advance towards the village, but seemed to be slowed down by the Browning machine guns on the Saracens.

 British infantry stopping for a quick brew while the Saracens win the hearts and minds of the locals by shooting them.  Those playing seemed to have a good time, which is the aim of the game at the end of the day.  Nice game Chas.








 The other game was a Rorke's Drift scenario set up by Nathan "Stumpy" Goodyear.  There were two three reasons for this, he bought the buildings and figures, I painted the buildings for him and it is 50 years since the "Zulu" film was released.

Four very dodgy types commanded the British garrison.  Jon "I'm used to be indecisive" Jones was both Chard and Bromhead and commanded the defenders of the storehouse.  His command style can only be described as changeable.  In 4 turns he ordered the British to fall back to the smaller compound, then countermanded that to hold the larger hospital compound and, then, changed it back to the original plan.  It's probably best not to mention the redoubt either, which was noticeable in its absence.

 Here is CinC JJ deploying some of the thin red line as my son Michael "Where's all me troops gone" looks on.





The other British commanders were Michael, Charlie and Nathan.   Michael defended the mealie bag wall behind the hospital as Sergeant Windridge and his command was let down badly by the actions of his immediate superior, Colour Sergeant Bourne!  Charlie was defending the hospital as CS Bourne and, following a markedly exaggerated report to JJ, he was given 4 of Michael's men to bolster his defence.  This came back to sting the Brits as Charlies sector was the most secure of all the British areas and Michael's wasn't.  Nathan commanded Surgeon-Major Reynolds and a small detachment of soldiers tasked with building the redoubt.  The less said about this the better, unless your a Zulu when you should mention it repeatedly. 

 Speaking of Zulu', here they are in all their glory.  Not really enough for the assault so we had to recycle them, but it looked good on the table.  The four Zulu commanders split the forces evenly and then attacked from both sides. 

 Here is the thin line under Sgt Windridge.  The building behind them is the hospital, which didn't burn down.

 Reynolds operates on some poor soul as the soldiers prepare to not build a redoubt.  The building is the store, which did burn down through a slight accident by a "Bloody Englishman" in the roof.  Nobody told him that thatch would burn, honest they didn't.

 Zulus' farsands of them.  Well, a few anyway.  This was my first wave, which was very badly treated by the damned Redcoats.

 A look at the south wall as the Zulus close in.  Despite the best efforts of the Zulu indunas the British fire was very effective and many brave warriors fell as the advanced.

 At least some reached the defences, where the sharp steel of the European bayonets was a match for that of the Zulu iklwas.

 Oops, where have all the Zulu's gone?  The rules worked very well, with the larger Zulu units being gradually worn down by attritional fire before being broken at the wall,  but usually they managed to take a couple of Redcoats with them.

 the north side, where the store was swarmed quickly, but as the British had decided to burn all the supplies the Zulu's were forced to go around it.  Damned sneaky those British!

 The 2nd (or 3rd) wave of Zulu's breaches the defences, but was driven back by some devastating fire followed by a charge of rallied redcoats.  In the background you can see Reynolds finishing off, ahem, healing the wounded.

 Too many cameras.  Here we have Charlie, Jack, Michael and JJ.  I'm not sure how many photos were taken, but there is a nice report on the DWG blog by JJ.  Hopefully we will see Jacks photos too.

 More Zulu's advance as the flanks start to collapse.  Despite being ordered to send men out of the hospital to help with the defence, Colour Sergeant Bourne decided to ignore the order and kept all his troops inside.  No VC for him methinks.  It was at this point that Bromhead went down with a nasty splinter, leaving Chard to command alone.

 The krall is supposed to be for cattle, not Zulus.  Six gallant redcoats do their best to hold of 60 Zulu warriors.  They died where they stood, but held the wall.

 Windridge's men did their best but, lacking support and falling fast, they were pushed back from the barricade.  If only they had a few more men, but where were they?  Maybe somebody should check the hospital for any malingerers!  Now if only they had a redoubt to fall back too, that would have been nice!






  The wall between the store and hospital was finally in action.  It took the Zulu's a long time to get there as Charlies fire dice were damned good, whittling down several waves of attackers before they could get to charge.  the action ended as the Zulu's fell back to lick their wounds.  The British had held out again, but with horrendous losses of well over 50%.  Thanks to Nathan for putting the game on and everybody else for playing it so well.  A thoroughly enjoyable game.  Now get painting so we can do Isandlwana!

Talking of painting, here is the latest offering.  A nice 4ground mdf wagon.  It took longer than I had planned as I had to try to make it look like wood planks.

Anyway, I am off now to prepare tonight Bag the Hun game.  Have fun and I'll catch you later.

Damn.

Last weekend I got quite a bit of painting done, which is usually a good thing.  Sadly the downside is I have had to reduce one of my anti-nausea tablets due to the potential side effects.  I was on 2 Domperidone after each meal, which did help reduce the generally bad way I felt after eating.  I am now on 1 tablet after each meal as the potential side effect is worse than feeling sick or throwing up.  It's quite a serious side effect too, Sudden Cardiac Death!  I mean seriously, how is that a good side effect for anything at all, ever?

Still,I got some more aircraft done with 9 Ju87 Stukas joining the ever increasing Luftwaffe armada. 

More Luftwaffe nasties

 I now have 16 Bf109s, 4 Bf110s, 24 He111s, 9 Ju88s and 9 Ju87s painted for the Germans, all faced by a lonely and outnumbered 12 Hurricanes.  I still have more to paint (14 Bf109s, 24 Bf110s, 21 Do17s, 12 Ju87s, 12 Hurricanes and 12 Spitfires), but at least there are enough done now for a decent game.  I need some Defiants though, just because, plus some French types to do the Battle of France, maybe some Polish ones too............its never ending.

Rorke's Drift Defences

I also got the defences for Nathan's Rorke's Drift set done, 4 sections of wall and 8 assorted defence bits all done and ready for him to base up.  They are all about 6" long and rather nice, although the details on some of the boxes were missing due to air holes.

Barricaded wagon, rather nice.

Finally there is the nicest piece of the set, the barricaded wagon.  This really is a nice piece and was a pleasure to paint up.


Now, while this is a reasonable amount of painting considering how crap I feel, there is a considerable downside to it.  I was supposed to be going to Casa de JJ yesterday to play the Battle of Oporto on his beautiful scenery with his rather nice figures, but I had a couple of bad nights.  They were followed by a bad day which resulted in me not being well enough to go.  Not b****y impressed!  So, sorry JJ, I would rather have been there than here mate.  I hope the game went well.

Anyway, catch you all later.

Bag the Hun (or Dakka Dakka Dakka!)

Monday night was Dogfight night, as we started a mini-campaign using the Too Fat Lardies Bag the Hun rules and Finest Hour supplement.  Four of the lads have taken the roles of British pilots while I ran the whole thing and Nathan assisted with the dastardly Hun fliers.  Squadron Leader Robert "Zobski" Zaple leads the squadron, A Flight and Red section.  Flight Lieutenant Andrew "Bunny" Noel is Blue one and leads B Flight.  Flying Officers Colin "Ollie Ollie" Edgecombe (Yellow One) and Paul "Pingu" Pengilly (Green One) make up the rest of the section leaders.  Day one saw A Flight (Red and Yellow sections) scrambled to intercept 10+ bandits approaching their airfield, while B Flight(Blue and Green) were on patrol.  Game one was A Flights battle, with the 6 Hurricanes climbing up to take on 6 Heinkel He111s and 4 Messerschmidt BF109s.

A head on intercept was the result of the set up and Red section was soon attacking the Heinkels from the front, while Yellow section swung in behind them to get better shots.  An accurate burst from SL Zaple caused the German flight leader to veer out of formation, straight into the guns of Pilot Officer Vivian, a sprog on his first combat flight.  A slightly extended burst later and the Heinkel exploded spectacularly(Roll a 10 on a "very critical" hit and that's what happens).  This caused Zaple and one of the Heinkels to go out of control, but Vivian flew on admirably and was soon evading the retribution of the 109s.

Yellow section in position

Yellow section was also firing, but couldn't manage more than light damage to the Heinkels (Colin's shooting was poor and Nathan's defence rolls were very lucky).  Rifle calibre machineguns need a lucky shot to take down a bomber.  They did manage to break the formation up, but were soon forced to break off by the attentions of the 109s.  Despite the best efforts of all concerned, no more aircraft were shot down.  Several were damaged, including 2 Hurricanes which crashed on return to RAF Croyden, but the flight had done enough to disrupt the bombers.  One kill, three probables and all RAF pilots returned safe, although that was more due to the robustness of the Hurricane than anything else, made it a successful day for A flight.  Now we just need to see how B flight get on with their mission in a couple of weeks.

It was a fun way to pass a Monday evening, but I was struggling by the end of the night and then didn't get much sleep as I felt so crap.  Then I had to be up early to take No2 son to fail his driving theory test yet again. 

More Heinkels!

Ho hum, never mind, keep smiling and all that jazz.  I have managed to get 15 more Heinkel He111s painted, which now gives me 24 available.   I am now back onto the Rorke's Drift scenery and 15mm Napoleonics, oh the joy of it all.  ;-)

Keep rolling those dice.