Cold War '85: Soviet Engineering Assets (and some odd bits...)

As we've been playing quite a lot of Battlegroup NORTHAG of late (more AAR's to come soon...) I've added some engineering assets and other odd bits to my 6mm Soviet forces in case we come up against some pesky NATO landmines, a river or whatever. Some of these have been sat in the 'pile of shame' for many decades, some were picked up from Heroics & Ros in the last month...

First up a couple of GHQ T-72's who have had Heroics & Ros KMT-5 mine rollers added...

A BREM-80 ARV from H&R. Not sure when this entered service but it is in the rulebook so I picked one up.

A UR-77 Meteorit mine clearing vehicle from H&R, unusual looking AFV this.

A H&R MT-55 Bridgelayer. I really like this model and have a deployed bridge as well for any West German rivers that need crossing.

From the 'pile of shame', well kind of... Originally painted up in a Soviet sand/green desert scheme, now repainted to aid in the liberation of West Germany, a PMP Ribbon Bridge on KrAZ-214 trucks. I am not 100% sure but I think these are OOP ISM (In-Service Miniatures) models though I can't find it on Micro Armor Mayhem. Like the MT-55 I also have a deployed bridge to use in games.

This is definitely an ISM (In-Service Miniatures) model - a rather large MAZ-537 tank transporter. Not the best model, the front is sloped rather than flat) but it looks cool on the table (and I have two!)

A trio of GHQ BRDM-2's that form part of my Soviet recce force and invariably get blown up!

Two BDRM-2 with AT-5 Spandrels from GHQ. The minimum range of the Spandrels in Battlegroup NORTHAG (30") makes deploying them effectively an art in itself, though one did manage to take out a Leopard 2 last Thursday!

A couple of 9K35 Strela-10's (SA-13 Gopher in NATO speak), I think these are GHQ (they were part of a second hand job lot bought a few years back).

Écorcheurs: La guerre du cochon!

A few weeks back Andy, Jack and myself played the pig raid scenario in Écorcheurs, the Hundred Years War skirmish game by Dr. Rob Jones (though we have transposed it to the First Barons' War). I took command of the rebel Army of God and the Holy Church (with French friends) who fancied some bacon for breakfast... 

Whilst Jack commanded those Barons still loyal to evil King John who wanted some fresh sausage for supper! Andy kindly umpired the game...

The rebel crossbows advanced towards the farm through some standing stones...

Covering the advance of a group of heavy spear anxious to bring home the bacon!

Lining up on a hill overlooking the farm, the crossbowmen loosed their bolts at the enemy...

Stunning a couple of the enemy archers (the blue tokens indicate which figures are Stunned).

This didn't however stop the loyalists moving into the farmyard, the crossbowmen still unloaded at this point (the red tokens)

The loyalists make an attempt to seize the pig - and grab the little porker!

The rebel heavy spear reach the farm...

And charge into the enemy archers!

Unfortunately for the rebels, despite their opponents being unarmoured, the charge was a bit of a mixed result with three of the spearmen being Stunned, whilst others forced back their opponents...

A desperate melee ensued in the farmyard...

With the pig making a bid for freedom!

The fighting continued with more rebels being Stunned by the tenacious archers!

Soon the weight of numbers began to tell as rebel spear fell to the loyalist bowmen...

The surviving rebels were ganged up on...

And wiped out to a man!

The archers then loosed a volley at the crossbowmen on the hill killing two and Stunning a third!

A unit of rebels light spear accompanying their Lord who had been hanging around at the rear suddenly found themselves in range of the loyalist bows...

And a couple of volleys almost wiped them out to a man as well!

The rebel Lord fell back and almost tripped over the pig who had been randomly running around. Picking up the porker it looked like he'd have bacon for breakfast despite losing most of his men!

The archers fired at the rebel knight, Stunning him and causing him to drop the pig which ran off!

The archers then tried to finish off the rebel standard bearer...

Only managing to stun him though he fell back into cover where a Stunned spearmen was skulking!

The archers advanced...

Spotting a rebel crossbowman who had managed to grab the errant porker!

His success was short lived at the archers struck him down - and the pig ran off again!

A surviving rebel spearman recklessly charged the archers but was ganged up and cut down...

Whilst the pig ran off - escaping the attempts of both sides to turn him into bacon and sausages. He was declared the winner!!

A fun game, Écorcheurs works best as a scenario driven game, and (as my rebels found) can be quite brutal - archers are especially lethal against unarmoured troops. We'll have to give some thought to some different scenarios and maybe some more terrain to stop Jack's archers massacring my brave rebels!

Force on Force: FUBAR in Falafel!

With Phil away on his annual August holibobs, Andy and I like to sneak in some games that don't appeal to Phil, and as I started looking at what we played this year I realised that I had not got around posting about the four great games of Force on Force we played last year, so with some vague recollection of how they went I thought I better get around to it!

To the best of my recollection the first game we played, set in downtown Falafel, the second city of Uruk, was based on the Feint scenario from the Force on Force Fallujah supplement. In it US forces were conducting a series of feint attacks across the city, clearing a couple of buildings that may or may not contain تمرد الغراب (Tamarud Alghurab) Insurgent forces.

With just eight turns to cross the board, clear the buildings and complete the mission this was going to be a challenge for the Americans whose Fire Teams had to quickly push forward if they were to succeed...

They swiftly cleared the first Unknown building which turned out to be empty of insurgents or IEDs.

And as the Fire Teams advanced deeper into downtown Falafel towards he second building, cover was provided by secondary teams put onto Overwatch...

Keeping a watchful eye out for Tamarud Alghurab insurgents!

It did not take long for some to appear...

And a fierce firefight broke out between them and a US Fire Team...

Shockingly the Tamarud Alghurab fire was unusually accurate with Fire Team One Alpha seeing one of their men severely wounded...

And then a second similarly hit another in Fire Team One Charlie! The Americans would need to get these men back to safety post haste!

Under the covering fire from an M249 SAW...

One of the wounded soldiers is dragged to safety, a local guide helping direct the Americans through the maze of streets in downtown Falafel.

Emboldened, the Tamarud Alghurab insurgents surge forward and although many become martyrs under the withering fire of the US Fire Teams, another American is wounded in One Alpha, albeit lightly this time.

The US forces keep up heavy fire on the insurgents...

As the seriously wounded are dragged to safety.

However, this has been a bad day for the Americans and shaken by the encounter, they fall back, their mission not completed.

Despite the overwhelming firepower at their disposal, the asymmetrical Force on Force scenarios are really challenging for First World forces and it does not take much for the battle to run away from them, like here, if things start to go wrong.