Sunday 30 December 2012

Bolt Action - Retreat from Stalingrad Scenario.





Today's game at the local club was one of my own creation. Based on an incident outlined in Gunter K. Korschorrek's excellent memoir "Blood Red Snow", it pitched the Soviet forces against a rapidly assembled Wehrmacht rearguard. The Germans were defending a small town and a bridge which had been designated an assembly area for those retreating from Stalingrad at the end of 1942. The defenders consisted of three infantry squads (of mixed Regular and Veteran troops), a light infantry gun (pictured), a couple of MMG's and two Panzer IV's. The Russian side had three infantry squads, two mortars, and Anti-Tank Squad plus two T34's. A devastating barrage and some lucky dice rolling held the Red Army in check at the beginning, and prevented them from concentrating their attack. Although the T34's fared somewhat better by rolling forwards and pinning some of the German infantry in the buildings whilst destroying a Panzer, then bringing down some deadly mortar fire on a nearby Infantry squad who pretty much disintegrated. The infantry gun's inexperienced team were quaking in their boots and hitting everything but a target until the last Panzer IV swung round a corner to smash the Russian armour. Next the Soviet hordes came crashing through undergrowth on the German left flank only to be cut down in crossfire from the MMG and LMG of a nearby infantry squad. 

Sunday 9 December 2012

Waffen SS Motorcycle with Sidecar and Dispatch Rider.


Both are 20mm Britannia Miniatures (http://www.britannia-miniatures.com/catalog/) WW2 models. A nice addition to my ever expanding German army. Noticed lots of people selling off 20mm models secondhand recently. Managed to grab a whole box of Russians plus vehicles the other day for the bargain price of forty quid from a nice man at the local club. These will undoubtedly turn into my winter project should I find myself snow bound ("is this it? is this Stalingrad?" to quote the Peep Show TV programme). By the way Skytrex the local and much famed miniatures company are now selling off their entire Wargames arm and solely investing in the train side of things from now on. If someone is looking to take any of this over, and has cash to invest, then they should drop them a line here: http://www.skytrex.com/. I'm assuming that includes the Command Decision 15mm WW2 product range, which are great models plus much cheaper than FoW and Battlefront.