Clock's ticking to the 10th Painting Challenge

Madrid Puerta del Sol Tower Clock

I can hardly believe that 8 months have passed, and the new edition of the Painting Challenge is looming now sooooo close in time (it will start as usual on Dec 21^st and hopefully it will be announced over the next days).

This year I entered into the planning phase at a very early stage (late September) and by now I have most of my core project for this Challenge almost ready (assembling, basing and priming).

As many of you may know, my strategy is to concentrate my efforts in one single project or army (Fallschirmjagers, Napoleonic Austrians or British Red Devils as in 2018/19…) and then complement with some leftovers from other projects.

This year I decided to focus my effort in building an early II World War German Army for the Blitzkrieg period. The reason for this is twofold: on the one hand, TooFatLardies released this year the first major supplement for Chain of Command centred around the France 40 campaign. The follow up videos uploaded to its YouTube official channel with Richard Clarke and Nick Skinner playing a few of the campaign games only light my desire.

Back to the Future or 2019 The Year I Returned to Tabletop Wargaming

It’s late October and I thought the right time to provide an update and y whereabouts. I just realised my last post is from May this year, some of you may wonder if I’m still life (which I am, as you can see). The truth is that I followed my own advice from late last year of “doing it as and when” and not getting worried of setting targets or goals to publish in the blog.

So what I’ve been up to? Well, I can say that it’s been of a back to the future of sorts year: very little playing with minis and a lot with tabletop wargames.

Fist a ittle bit of context and history Unlike many of the anglo-saxon wargamers, my first steps in the hobby were not with little toy soldiers or the Donald Featherson’s book (totally unknown in Spain the 70s) but with boxed wargames in the very early 80s.

Given my interest for history and particularly 2^nd World War history, my late father found like the perfect Xmas gift for me in December 1980 in the form of wargame: Panzerblitz (followd soon after by the sister game Panzerleader). It was like a revelation from heaven and the start of my long standing interest in the hobby. I played with my brother and collected close to 30 Avalon Hill and Victory Games products.

In the mid 80s I was cofounder of Club Dragón in Madrid and my interests started to widen towards the games with minis, initially fantasy games (WFB) and very soon historical games in the Ancient and 2^nd World War period.

Gradually I abandoned tabletop wargamers and haven’t literally again played a single game since AH went through the financial drain in the late 90s and was sold to Hasbro.

This has completely reversed this year. I coincided with a very active small group of wargamers that gather every Friday afternoon. Coincidentally, we have moved the office of my company from the suburbs to new premises centrally located and 10 minutes walking from the club in late January… so all stars aligned.

Churchill Tank for Chain of Command

The latest addition to the armoury is this British Churchill heavy tank.

British Sherman for Chain of Command

I’m having quite an enjoyable wargaming weekend. Started yesterday (Friday) playing the inaugural game of Sickle Cut (GMT’s strategic France 40 wargame designed by the my most revered Simonitch).

And today Saturday I had the opportunity to conclude my latest model, a British-crewed Sherman useful either for either Chain of Command or What a Tanker. This is part of the tail of models that I could not finish before the Painting Challenged ended a month ago.

1815 The Hundred Days - Scenarios for General d'Armee

Reissswitz Press, TooFatlardies’ sister publishing company has just released a new publication called “1815, The Hundred Days”, a supplement for General d’Armee and covering the period of Napoleon´s return from Elbe Island to Waterloo.

This 45 pages-long booklet is divided in two parts:

• The historical background of the campaign leading to Napoleon’s defeat on 18th June 1815, intersected with comments from the Dave Brown expressing his views of some the key moments of the campaign (the “blue boxes” in the book).

•  Six scenarios covering some of the key actions in this period: the crossing of the Sambre at Charleroi (Battle at Gilly), Quatre Bras, Ligny (the Battle at St Amand), Waterloo’s Battle for Mount St Jean, Plancenoit and finally the iconic attack of the Old Guard. 

Therefore this is NOT a campaign book á la Pint-Sized format used in Chain of Command, but six independent scenarios that can be played individually.

Each scenario is very well detailed, with precise roster of troops involved, nicely drawn maps and clear special scenario rules. The battles can be played in standard or large formats, and specific instructions are also provided. The scenarios also include suggestions on terms of table sizes to be played in 15mm (I suppose also valid for 20mm – 1/72scale) as well as 28mm.

The publications maintains the a very high quality standards of other Reisswitz Press releases, contents are well structured, the edition is outstanding and include some very nice photos and illustrations.

Generally speaking, all what I could have expected for a supplement for GdA is in the book.

This is the first supplement for General d’Armee since the publication of the rules early last year, but it seems from comments in the Lard Island blog that more are in the pipeline. The book scenarios are also useful as templates to build your own scenarios in other campaigns or standalone battles.

!815 The Hundred Days is sold for 9.68 Pounds only in electronic pdf format, no plans to be released in hard copy. It can be acquired at the TooFatLardies website here.

Martlet Campaign - Games 1 & 2

Over the past two weekends we started and re-started again playing the Martlet campaign:  no surprise, my gaming pals and I seem to be a little bit rusty in relation to the Chain of Command book and additionally forgot to read the special scenario rules, which basically invalidated the result of the first two games.

The first replayed game (Scenario 1-Probe into Fontenay) represents an attack of the German outposts located in the outskirts of the village of Fontenay. The British win if at least one team exits the table through the German baseline. 

Chain of Command Martlet Campaign - Introduction

I can’t believe it’s been now two years since we played our latest Chain of Command game. Despite having used the rules intensively since the release (and even before, as we were part of the testing group), for different reasons my gaming group oriented their games towards other periods and rules, falling almost into oblivion… until this weekend.

One of my club members and I were having a coffee a few weeks back on a Sunday and I casually mentioned Chain of Command. Very quickly we both close a date and today we have started a (hopefully) new cycle of games.

As we prefer campaigns to casual games, we agree to play the Martlet pint-sized campaign, likely to be followed by the Scottish Corridor supplement in due time. Martlet is a pre-Epson Normandy June 44 operation. The goal was to capture the Raury Spur by the 49^th West Riding Division to protect the flank of the 51^st Scottish Division during Epsom.

Source: Too Fat Lardies - Martlet Campaing Book

This is a 6-rung campaign in which the British fight not only against the Germans but also the time, to complete the breakthrough in 1 day before the opening of Epsom.

 

Source: Too Fat Lardies - Martlet Campaing Book

Thrilled to resume my love affaire with Chain of Command, I’ll keep an updated diary of the campaign over the next weeks. I’ll be leading a panzergrenadier platoon of the 12^th SS HJ although on the table I’ll be featuring my German Fallschirmjager models instead (I don’t own any SS models and is very unlikely that I’ve ever will paint  some).

More news coming soon.

Th Painting Challenge - Final Report

Incredibly how fast time flies when you are enjoying an activity. Unexpectedly, March 21^st arrived and the IX Challenge was suddenly called off. I couldn’t achieved my target points (750) but having obtained 637 points left me happy enough (my highest score in a Challenge so far).

This is a group photo showing all the models painted included in the customary wrap up post in the Challenge blog.

And now let’s look at the different entries since my latest post here

The Painting Challenge Progress Report (2)

This is the second report of my participation in Curt’s Annual Painting Challenge.

Over the last three weeks since the previous blog entry, I continued fully focused on my British Airborne platoon for Chain of Command, adding a few pieces to the project and maintaining a (surprising) good painting momentum.

The first new entry was the Section Two of the platoon. This is identical to the first section, featuring a Rifle Team and a LMG (Bren) Team   and led by a Junior Leader (in the parlance of Chain of Command).

The Painting Challenge Progress Report (1)

As many of you know, the ninth edition of the Annual Painting Challenge started with a Bang! last 21^st December, extending until the end of the winter season in March this year. My project for the current edition (also explained in previous posts) is to complete a British Airborne platoon with supports to play with Chain of Command.

The platoon OB is as follows:

·       Platoon HQ: 2 x senior leaders, PIAT Team, 2” Mortar Team and Sniper Team

·       Section one and two each with 1 Junior Leader, Rifle team (5 men armed with lee Enfields and one with Sten) and a LMG Team (Bren Gun with 3 crew)

·       Section Three: 2 LMG teams as above plus 2 Stens and a Sniper Team

How is it going so far? Not bad at all considering that only two weeks has passed since the start of the event. I have managed to maintain a good momentum, undoubtedly helped by the Christmas holidays; I have invested many hours day and night to paint during the break.

My first entry (click in the links for more details) was a cadre of senior leaders, including some well Hollywoodian characters easily recognisable if you have watched A Bridge Too Far.

So here we have Major General “Roy” Urquhart, Lt Colonel Frost and major Digby Tahtam-Warter