I Ain't Been Shot Mum: Taking the Starmaskaya Bridge!

Apologies for the radio silence on the blog, life, the universe and whatnot... Having a quick look at the draft posts for the blog there are at least 20 so I better try and finish some of them... :-)

Earlier this year with Winter Wonder Lard V then creeping up very quickly, Phil and Jen recruited Andy and I to play-test their new I Ain't Been Shot Mum scenario which featured a change of scene for them being set during Operation Barbarossa where a German reconnaissance unit was tasked with capturing a strategically important bridge...

Near the bridge was a Kv-1, unfortunately it had broken down and the crew were trying to fix it by banging it with spanners...

Starmaskaya village was a nondescript little hovel but had a nice church - and a Soviet supply dump.

The German reconnaissance unit, commanded by Andreas von Krähe, aggressively advanced down the main road to the bridge a Schwerer Panzerspähwagen leading the way.

Not realising the Soviets, commanded by the legendary Bolshevik Krasnyy Stiv, were lying in wait!

But before the Soviets could meaningful react Von Krähe gunned his BMW motorbike combinations down the road to the bridge, though some Germans were caught in the rear by Soviet rifle fire.

The Kv-1 crew manfully fought off the first assault by the now dismounted motorcyclists - more than one fascist receiving a dent in his helmet from a quality Workers spanner - but they were soon machine-gunned down. 

Heroes of the Soviet Union to a man, their sacrifice for the Motherland will not be forgotten and even as their still warm blood seeped into the soil of the Rodina, their noble delaying action allowed the Soviets to bring up more armour in the form of two T-70's!

Pikiruyushchiy Bombardirovshchik!!! With the German advance stalling on the outskirts of Starmaskaya a dreaded Stuka appeared and rained hell on the defenders inflicting casualties and shock!

On the opposing flank German armour appeared over the hill a second Soviet 45mm 53-K anti-tank gun (Sorokapyatka) engaged the panzers, though it soon fell victim to another Stuka attack!

However despite several of its crew lying dead around it the other Sorokapyatka fought bravely on...

An Sd.Kfz.231 falling victim to the deadly "little 45"!

Meanwhile with the Soviets no longer having any anti-tank capability to protect the other flank, Von Krähe aggressively pushed his jack-booted force forward...

The Soviets on the outskirts of the village put up an valiant resistance against the superior numbers of fascist invaders but were pinned under the weight of enemy fire and eventually pushed back into the village itself.

However with dusk starting to fall and the Sorokapyatka AT gun, now down to just one crewman, taking out a Sd.Kfz.222 (another Hero of the Soviet Union here!), Von Krähe realised he was not going to able to complete his mission despite the crumbling Soviet defence and would have to try again another day (assuming he was not sent to a Strafbatallion for his incompetent failings).

Another fun IABSM game owing a lot to Phil's running of it and Jenny's lovely terrain, it went down well at Winter Wonder Lard V and subsequent Lardy Days were P&J ran it - hopefully I'll get a chance to play the follow up 'Return to Starmaskaya' at some point and remove all traces of the fascist from the Motherland!

Indian Rebellion: Bengal Native Infantry Mutineers

The beginning of 2025 saw all hands to the pump for Winter Wonder Lard V where I had decided to run an Indian Mutiny Sharp Practice game - The Relief of Dojjibotti. Whilst Phil has happy enough to lend me his Mutineers for the game I decided that given the numbers of Pandies sat in the pile of shame (some since the late Eighties) that I would try and paint up what I had amassed over the decades.

In the main the miniatures were from Old Glory which are decent enough slightly chunky sculpts, full of character and with lots of head variants. There were also some Foundry, including the two command figures in the picture above originally painted back in the late eighties/early nineties when the miniatures were first released. There were also a smattering of Empress Miniatures which are lovely figures but whose bayonets have a tendency to break off if you just look at them.

With at least 110 figures to paint in a month I decided to forgo using Army Painter dip due to the drying time and after experimenting on a civilian figure used Sonic Sledgehammer's Marine Juice wash. If you are unfamiliar with this I very much recommend watching the video (click the link), it was a life saver. Essentially all the figures are just base coated, washed with Marine Juice then a few highlights picked out (Ivory for the white clothing)

Whilst it was somewhat repetitive I managed to get nine groups of Mutineers plus command (84 figures) fully painted in under four weeks! But that was not all...

Using the same technique I managed to paint up four groups of skirmishers with command for each too.

The cavalry had been painted for a while (indeed they made their tabletop debut back in 2018 proxying for the Bengal Lancers in this The Men Who Would Be Kings game with George), but to tie them in with the rest of the army I gave the clothing a wash of Marine Juice and applied a few quick highlights...

Following the game, and given how quickly I painted up 110 miniatures I decided to plough through the remaining Mutineer box of shame - which contains several cannon and crew and a load more cavalry. Progress without a deadline has of course slowed to snails pace but I have managed to finish this twelve-pounder with Bengal Horse Artillery crew...

And this nine-pounder with crew in native dress. The Guns I think are Foundry for the twelve-pounder and Mutineer Miniatures for the nine-pounder, the crews are Mutineer Miniatures.

For a deployment point I used this lovely Empress Miniatures snake charmer...

And no Indian Mutiny scenario is complete without some local fauna. The tiger would randomly appear out of patches of jungle and the goats (Bengal Blacks, I probably spent more time researching the correct goat breeds and colouring than I did on the Mutineer regiments!) who just sat on a hill looking at the silly humans shooting each other. All these miniatures are from Irregular Miniatures.

So that's the Mutineers, I suppose next I ought to tell you how they fared outside the walls of Dojjibotti...

War of Liberation: HaT Prussian Landwehr

A few years back you may recall that HaT Figures, manufacturers of 20mm soft plastic figures, dipped their toes in the 28mm hard plastic market releasing several boxes of Napoleonics and an El Cid range. Whilst the Napoleonics were nice figures (indeed I use some as my Italian Light Infantry skirmishers) they were slightly smaller and less bulky than figures produced by their competitors such as Perry's, Wargames Atlantic, Victrix etc. and, presumably after not proving as popular as hoped, releases ceased.

Lessons learned, HaT are moving back into the 28mm hard plastic market with releases of Napoleonics and American War of Independence soon to be forthcoming. HaT were kind enough to send me a pre-release sprue each of the new (2001) Prussian Landwehr Marching and (2002) Prussian Landwehr in Action.

Dealing with the elephant in the room, compatibility with other ranges as you can see from this photo they scale well height and bulk wise with other Prussian plastics (left to right - Perry Infantry, Wargames Atlantic Reserve Infantry, HaT Landwehr, Warlord Games Landwehr).

To be clear the miniatures are hard plastic, the same as Perry's, Victrix etc, NOT the soft plastic HaT uses for its other ranges. The marching box (2001) will contain 40 figures, each sprue holding ten. The figures are either one piece castings or two with a separate back pack that you can glue on with plastic cement as you do with Perry's etc.

The figures are reasonably well detailed, not as sharp as Perry's but similar to the Warlord Landwehr and Wargames Atlantic Reserve Infantry. They certainly are good enough for the wargames table. The bayonets are a bit thick, which is good in that they should not ping off like Perry models during game play.  I would consider just filing the tops a bit with a quick swipe of a file to make them more pointed.

Some of the figures have backpacks which fit well enough, however the cartridge box is affixed to this and can end up not snug to the body. It took less than a minute to cut them off the backpacks and glue them directly to the figure.

The Action set (2002) - also 40 figures - is very useful given the absolute dearth of Landwehr other than in marching poses (the Landwehr were able to skirmish!). Like the Marching set I would file the top of the bayonets and I fixed the cartridge boxes but aside from that I was happy with the pose variety which should give me some good Skirmishers for Sharp Practice!

All in all this is a decent first step back into the 28mm market by HaT. The detail could be a little sharper and I hope HaT consider manufacturing them in a nice boring grey plastic not the bright blue the samples came in! I'm not sure about the price point, but HaT usually offer very good value so hopefully this will continue.

Along with the American War of Independence range HaT have as coming soon, they have now extended the 2000 series list to include Landwehr command, as well as Hungarian, Austrian and Russian Napoleonic troops, which all sounds very promising...

Sharp Practice: A Hero in Peril at Roganjosh!

Back to a turbulent India with Phil and Andy, and another Sharp Practice game was the British race to rescue Colonel Flashman, captured by the Pandies and about to be fed to a crocodile!

As the unfortunate British hero was about to become croc-kibble, Badmash skirmishers kept an eye out for any last minute British rescue effort...

Hold on Flashy! The British army is marching to your rescue...

With the Gurkhas protecting their flank, the North Somersetshires' march boldly into Roganjosh...

Whilst the South Gloucestershire Light Horse canter around the town seeking an alternative entrance into Roganjosh to rescue old Flashy.

Meanwhile in the town Andi Pandi is rousing his fanatical Ghazis into something of a lather.

Resolutely advancing forward, the Piffers (Punjab Field Force Sikhs) fire a volley at the Badmash bounders on a roof top killing one.

The other Badmashes try to shoot down the advancing Gurkhas, but make a complete hash of it.

Kai Kai! Andi Pandi looses his frothing Ghazis on the stout lads from North Somerset...

The North Somersets give the Ghazis a volley seeing them off. Min Jeeta then sends her Badmashes in on the gallant Brits...

Who beat them back with stout British courage and fortitude!

With the efforts of the rebels focused on the main road into Roganjosh, the Piffers scale the walls on the right and given some retreating Badmashes a volley...

Whilst the steady fire of the Gurkhas sees the Badmashes forced from the buildings to their front.

And then the coup de grace... With a cry of Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal! the Piffers go in, bayonets levelled into the Badmashes routing them.

At this point the Indian Force Morale hit zero and the rebels fled from Roganjosh. Flash Harry was safe, a soldier of the North Somersets put a bullet into the crocodile, which Flashman subsequently had skinned and made into a nice handbag for Elspeth...

Another atmospheric game of Sharp Practice and my first win of the year!

Force on Force: Candy Shop Casevac!

Trawling through some photos of games played last year I realised I hadn't posted about a great game of Force on Force that Andy and I played last December - indeed I then realised I hadn't posted here we'd been playing Force on Force at all!!

August, with Phil on his annual sojourn to pastures foreign, sees Andy and I try a few different games and it was Andy who expressed a desire to try out Force on Force having picked up a copy of the Osprey hardback. I also had a copy - and some 20mm modern US and Soviet troops which I'd painted up for my much stalled Whirarwistan '88 project, which led to a trial game (pictured above).

We both enjoyed it, and despite the rulebook looking extremely daunting, found the rules easy to follow, not mired in ridiculous detail and really quite intuitive. Andy bought some Caesar Miniatures 20mm Insurgents, painted them up and we subsequently played a couple more games set in the fictional neighbouring state of Uruk, riven by civil war and insurgency, which has seen the US drawn in to prop up the friendly incumbent regime.

Anyway, fast forward to December and Phil off on some pre-Xmas jolly somewhere we played a game loosely based on the Candy Store scenario from the Force on Force Fallujah supplement...

In the scenario the US forces have occupied a large building (the Candy Shop) in down town Falafel, the second city of Uruk, currently largely in تمرد الغراب (Tamarud Alghurab) Insurgent hands. One of the Americans has been badly wounded and needs urgent CASEVAC. With six turns to get in, load the casualty and get out, this was going to be a challenge.

The Alghurab Insurgents occupy many of the buildings surrounding the Candy Shop and await their opportunity to attack the foreign invaders.

The US force occupying the Candy Shop has its Fire Teams on Overwatch, waiting for the opportunity to teach the Insurgents a lesson and ensure a clear route for the CASEVAC.

The Insurgent commander الغراب العظيم (Alghurab Aleazim) makes the first move, a group of his fighters moving to outflank the Candy Shop and cut off any route to it.

A second group are caught by American fire...

Whilst a third pop up opposite the American position and start trading fire - and coming off far worse.

The M249 SAW covers one flank...

Though this does not stop the Insurgents effectively surrounding the Candy Shop in turn two and firing an ineffective RPG round into it - before being gunned down.

With insurgents now approaching on all sides, this was beginning to look a lot like the Alamo!

One group of insurgents make a dash across some open ground to a building nearer the enemy...

But are spotted and gunned down.

Here comes the cavalry! Well the AAVTP7's of the Marine Corps. Arriving on Turn Three they literally have to get in, load and get out in the three remaining turns. Nothing can go wrong if they are to succeed...

The two AAVTP7's successfully reach the Candy Shop, Alghurab Aleazim regretting firing his RPG randomly at the building the previous turn now two juicy armoured targets had arrived.

With one AAV providing cover down the main street, the second moves in behind the Candy Shop to recover the badly wounded soldier and a second who has been hit in this battle.

The two casualties are loaded, now to get out of Dodge!

The CASEVAC AAV reverses back to the main street...

Immediately coming under fire from an Insurgent RPG! It is slightly damaged, but not quite enough to slow it down. The second AAV subsequently hoses the Insurgents down with its M2HB HMG...

With the Insurgents desperately trying to get an RPG into a position to stop it, the CASEVAC AAV manages to make it to safety in the final turn, the wounded soldiers taken to Battalion Aid...

Just one more RPG hit and Alghurab Aleazim and his Insurgents would have been able to claim a great victory against the foreign invader, as it was he just had a lot of dead followers littering the streets of  Falafel...

Despite it ending up as an overwhelming American victory, at no point was it easy. Force on Force's handling of asymmetric warfare is really simple with the Insurgents being able to move swiftly around the table unseen, popping up and spraying the First World forces with fire. Whilst that is generally ineffective, a lucky hit can cause a decisive serious wound or kill, and with the scenarios offering very limited time to complete objectives, the First World player cannot sit back and just rely on their superior firepower to win them a game.

Unfortunately Force on Force is currently out of print, but if the subject matter interests you, grab a secondhand copy if you see one at a reasonable price.