NEW BUILDINGS

    I bought some 6mm Urban buildings at skirmish con. I just finish painting them a few days ago. 

I believe these buildings were designed with Warhammer Epic or Battletech in mind but can be used for just about any microarmor game.

One nice thing about these new building is that the roofs are removable. This gives them a different look or allow more stands to be placed on them.

I also painted up these town houses. This is one of oldest miniature buildings that I brought way back in the 80s. 

Finally their were these industrial bits.

Next up I'm thinking of painting up some modern US marines

This Weeks Painting

 I did some more painting Saturday. I decided to continue working on my 6mm. This time around I decided to paint some of the British armor I had. A bunch of Fv432 APCs including several variants, an Fv180 and Chieftain ARV. 

 

A close up of the Chieftain ARV and Fv180 CEV.

Another close up of the Fv432 mortar carrier and the Fv432 signals.

Somehow a Spartan got mix in with the bunch.

I'll probably spend next weekend basing them. Until next time, Mary Christmas!!

Recent Painting

     I started to get back to painting again this week. I decided to paint some of my numerous 1/300 buildings. A few houses and a bombed out church.

Next I plan to do some modern British armor.

Megablitz Bastogne Game II

 For the 80 anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge I decided to play my Megablitz Bastogne scenario. The game was played between me and Mike Baker at Savannah Lions Games. I tried some new things with the scenario. I reduced the strength of the Germans and allowed them to start on the table. However after day two the two panzer divisions would pullout to continue operations elsewhere. 

The perimeter around Bastogne from the North you can see Panzer Lehr moving in from the South, while 2nd Panzer moves in from the North. In the center is 26th Volksgrenadier

A close up showing more of the German forces.

Battles breakout on the Western roads between the panzer troops and paratroopers. Meanwhile on the left, the German pioneers repair the bridge at Wiltz.

The paratroopers desperately holding one as fresh German battalions move up with panzer and artillery support.

In the end we only manage to get through 1 and half days of fighting.  Mike's Germans had punched a hole in the perimeter, but my CCB fire brigade managed to plug it up. The situation was in doubt as the weather had cleared for the day allowing for American air support and there were only a few turns left before the panzer divisions pulled out to continue their advance. The problem with playing at the club is that the meetings only last 3 hours. Not enough time to fight a battle this size, especially as I was both playing and teaching Mike the game. Still we had fun and that's what matters. 

Megablitz Bastogne

 I know I promised to post about this game a while ago but I had some computer problems. I played this game a while back. We had 4 players, 3 German and 1 American. Unfortunately, I was so busy both playing and teaching the game, all the players were new, that I didn't take any pictures of the game itself. Luckily, my friend Mike Baker had me covered. 

The German Forces. From left to right, we have the Panzer Lehr division, 26th Volksgrenadier division, and the my 12th panzer division standing in for the 2nd panzer division. 

The American forces. In the center is the 101st airborne. Just below them is some of the attached units. At the bottom left is CCR of the 10th armored division. 

The battlefield with Bastogne in the center 

The US units deployed around Bastogne. 

Me commanding the Veteran 2nd Panzer and Mark playing the commander of Panzer Lehr. While Mark's forces got bottled up at Wiltz due to the heavy woods and nearby river; I was starting to bypass the defenses at the North. You can also see the 26th VG moving up the road to Wiltz. This was just before they made a right turn and moved through the woods towards Bastogne. 

The fighting near Wiltz. The US player had aggressively pushed out CCR 10th to attack the German Panzers. This would defiantly cost him later. 

Game day 2, Bastogne finds itself surrounded on almost all side. We ended up calling it for the Germans. There was only a single regiment and some support units in Bastogne. CCR had pretty much been destroyed, meaning no mobile reserves to come to Bastogne's aid. The US had managed to inflect some causalities on Panzer Lehr and wiped out a regiment of the 26th when it decided to attack.

Over all it was a fun and successful game. While my new player made a few errors as they were still in a bit of a tactical mindset. Mark had put his recon stands at the back of his column and it took him a while to take advantage of his mobility. The American player for his part was a bit too lop sided with his defense, allowing me to get around it. Still they all did very well. 

Making a Megablitz Battlefield

 Hello all. Last week I took part in Tanksgiving, my friend's, Mike, Thanksgiving game day event. I decided to run a Megablitz game of Bastogne. Since I'm planning to run this game at a convention later. I decided to make a specialized game board for it. This was the first time I've tried such a thing. 

A Map of the battlefield based on John Tiller's "Bulge 44" game. 

I started by gluing foam core elevations to a 2" thick piece of insolation foam. BTW each square is 6". I play Megablitz with 6mm or 3mm minis so I usually don't need a large table top.

Next I used some spackle to smooth out the hills and started carving in some rivers. 

Next I painted the whole thing white and painted in the road network as well as some gray squares for the urban areas. I added sand and rocks to the river beds and painted them gray. I then added water effects and green foliage clusters. I patted down the clusters with white paint on a sponge. Below is the final result

The battle field on game day, with Bastogne in the middle. The whole thing fits in the back seat of my car. 

A closeup of Bastogne. The buildings are Pico 2mm.

A closeup of the village of Wiltz. This was the location of a large German bottleneck.

The map is still a work in progress. I want to paint the sides so they're not pink, as well as add more water effects to the rivers. Next post I'll go over the game itself. 

New Megablitz Units

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you a good time where ever you.are. I'm hoping to do a special Megablitz game for the 75th anniversary of Bastogne. So I've been spending the past few weeks painting up new units. Here are a few of the new Germans. First the Panzer Lehr Division, which I painted up a couple of weeks ago.

The 130th panzer regiment with a Pz IV and panther and the 130th AT battalion with a JgPz IV. The Pz IV barrel is bent to the right have to fix that.

The 901st and 902nd Panzer Grenadier regiments. Panzer Lehr was unusual in the all its infantry battalions were carried in Sd251 halftracks.

The 130th Recon Battalion with 2 armored cars and 2 halftracks

The division combat support units which include the artillery regiment, Flak battalion, and pioneer battalion.

Here we have the division HQ and staff.

Finally the division also had a number of army level support units attached to it during the battle. These include: the 559th heavy AT battalion equipped with Jagdpanthers, the 243rd StuG brigade, and the HEER 311th AA battalion.

Last week I painted up 26th Volksgrenadier Division. Buying some winter German infantry from H&R I decided to make them my first true winter unit (I'll flock the Panzer lehr for NW Europe after the game). I'll probably also use it as a regular infantry unit in early war scenarios, as like most Volksgrenadier division the 26th was originally an Infantry division.

Here's the whole division together. You may have noticed that the supply unit only has one wagon. I'm changing the basing of my support units to make them less awkward and also less expensive. I'm knocking them down to one miniture per 30-40 vehicles. 

Here is the unit with its unit designations. The 26th Volksgrenadier was unusual among infantry divisions at the time in that it still had 3 battalions per regiment.

While I was painting the 26th Volksgrenadiers, I also painted a the rear support for the Panzer Lehr division. I also painted a corps support unit the 55th Werfer Regiment.

I now have all the major units I need. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the 101st Airborne. I'll try to post them up next week.

Megablitz: New Aircraft

Managed to do some painting over the weekend. This time I decided to paint some aircraft for late war eastern front. First off we have some new German fighters. A Me109G and Fw190.

The Me109 is an old In-Service Miniatures model, while the Fw190 is from Scotia

Next we have a Ju87G with autocannons and a Fw189 reconnaissance plane.

Both models are by Scotia

Of course these aircraft need someone to fight, so I also added to my Red Airforce. First up is the fighters, an La-5 and Yak-9.

The La-5 is a Scotia model, while the Yak-9 is GHQ.

For Ground Support we have a IL-2M and Pe-2 light bomber. Also in the background is a Po-2 bi-plane. A versatile little craft, they where used as light bombers, or reconnaissance planes.

Both the IL-2M and Pe-2 are from Scotia, while the Po-2 is from H&R. 

That's the new stuff for now. A few more odds and Ends and I'll be ready for a another game of Megablitz. I'm not sure what I'll work on next.

Megablitz: The Red Hammer, Supersized!

    I actually got some painting done this month. For some up coming games of Megablitz I decided I needed some army level artillery as well as other assets. So I just came up with this Monstrosity, the 6th Breakthrough Artillery Corps.

   This unit is based on one that fought in the battle of Berlin and will be providing army level artillery for the forseeable future. The corps is made up of two breakthrough artillery division. First is the 2nd Breakthrough Artillery Division.

In the first half of the division we have the 20th Light Artillery Brigade, 10th Guards Howitzer Brigade, and the 16th Guards Gun Brigade.

Next we have the 48th Guards Heavy Howitzer Brigade, 121st High Powered Howitzer Brigade, and 5th Mortar Brigade.

The other division is 14th Breakthrough Artillery Division.

Its first half is made up of the 169th Light Artillery Brigade, 172nd Howitzer Brigade, and 176th Heavy Howitzer Brigade.

The other half has the 122nd High Powered Howitzer Brigade, 21st Heavy Mortar Brigade, and 6th Guards Mortar Brigade.

In addition to the artillery Corps I also made some other army level assets. Two Anti-aircraft artillery regiments and a medical unit. (For the horses)

Finally while I made a couple of modern Pact units for FFT. Two upper level command vehicles. These were part of a Shapeways command set I brought for fun. They will mainly serve as possible objectives in any FFT games.

Next up I think I'll paint up some aircraft.