Fleshing out my British Eighth Army - Recce

It's back to basics this week, fleshing out my North Africa British Eighth Army.  There are a few transports I'm missing for my 25 pdrs, a Jeep and two 15 cwt trucks.  I also picked up two blisters of Marmon Herrington IIIs armored cars for some much wanted Recce.  There are three in a unit and two to a blister, so the fourth one I assembled with a captured anti-tank gun.

I've never really had a thing for the looks of this vehicle but after assembling them and taking a good look, I have to admit they are really growing on me.  Can't wait to get them on the table.  I've developed a romantic connection to the desert over the years, and if I was ever to get into reenactment, it would be the LRDG for me.  Especially after seeing them in person at the local Air Show (pictures here).



I set up on the dining room table with the vehicles I glued this weekend to beat the heat out in the garage.  Surprisingly, though, it's relatively cool tonight, but I have a few TV shows to catch up on.  Mostly dry brushing, anyway.

My painting setup with my old and faithful MDF paint tray from Games Workshop:

A brew would probably have been more appropriate, but after a long day at work, a cappuccino did the job:

This last weekend there was an interesting lecture at the local air museum about the P51 Mustang long range bomber escorts.  Listening to the veterans talk about their experiences flying these planes was quite an experience.

The gentleman on the left is the son of the pilot who flew the Mustang named Dolly and the museum unveiled the plane with Dolly newly painted on the nose.  The other two gentleman are Veterans that flew the P51s during WWII.  True heroes in my mind:

That's is one beautiful plane!

North Africa Practice Game

I was able to get in a quick practice game in this Saturday morning.  I spent most of the week studying the rules and taking notes.  I starting to think I'm getting the hang of it for the most part.  I've invited over some friends and regular players to play Friday night.  Work has been very busy and I'm hoping I won't have to cancel.  We'll see.

We played 1000 point lists, with the British infantry list having two infantry platoons instead of the required three.  Since it was a practice game, I figured it didn't matter.  The game went well;  a little slow, but the emphasis was on learning the rules.  It started to get pretty hot in the garage so we called it draw; it is getting to be that time of year.  I snapped a few pictures below.

The bocage I ordered from Luke at WWPD showed up this week.  Looks great.  See below.

On a side note the England vs Italy game was terrible  We lost on penalties again.

Notes and play aids:

Lucage looks great! (Luke's Bocage):

FOW Rookie Game Report

My anticipation had been building up all week for the game I had planned with my son, Curtis (graduated with a bachelor degree last week--very proud).  I spent a few evenings during the week getting ready and setting up the table.  My wife made pulled pork tacos again -delicious.  The North Africa, mid-war game started off well, but our second game was cursed with a sophomore jinx; we made some glaring rules errors and spent too much time looking up rules.  Too long since our last and first game.  I had placed more terrain on the table this time, bogging the game down somewhat as well as our vehicles.  We were a little shaky on the terrain rules.  The fog of war was thick and so were our heads.  We resigned ourselves to using the game as a much needed training session, therefore no battle report.  We had some good laughs as rules were remembered on my son's turn since I thought more on his turn due to not having to concentrate on moving and shooting.  This was an obvious disadvantage for him.  Plus, my die rolling was on fire.

The great news is we learned a lot and will now be playing on a more regular basis.

Lessons learned:

• Know the rules.  We need to study more.  The obvious good thing about playing is knowing where your rule knowledge is weakest.  I took notes of the questions we had.
• Practice with smaller armies.  Starting off at 1500 points is probably not a good idea.
• This game is fun.  Even with our issues, we still had a good time.  I want a game that's not too complicated and not too simple: this game is right in there.
• Use the turn sequence steps at the beginning of the rule book chapters.  I think I'll type them up and print them out.
• Have the terrain summary handy:  Page 30.  I emailed Battlefront a few months ago requesting this page as a PDF game aid. Hopefully, it will happen.
• Have the 'Concealment Status Summary' on page 89 readily available.  Also understand what 'dig in' and 'go to ground' does.
• Continue to use this great tool: assault phase flowchart.  Great tool for the new player.

The proud family from left to right: my mom, me with my Luke from WWPD mask on. Curtis, my beautiful wife and taco maker, and our favorite professor:

More Reenactment Pictures

I passed the exam of another certification for work so I'm back in FOW mode again.  So happy.  It has been a while.  I spent some time gluing my Russians this last week, mostly 'god of war' artillery.  I'm so far away from being ready for the Eastern Front but I'll keep plugging away.  My son and I plan on playing this Friday, so hopefully a North Africa battle report soon.  I'll generate the lists and then setup the table on Thursday so we can get right to it after dinner, Friday evening.  Can't wait.

In the mean time, here are some more WWII re-enactment pictures (soviet stuff, too!) from the Planes of Fame Airshow, in no particular order:

Long Range Desert Group Re-enactment

My grandson, a couple of friends and I headed out to the Planes of Fame Airshow last weekend.  We had a great time.  While walking around I was somewhat surprised to find some WWII reeanctors along with their equipment.  I was really excited to see a Long Range Desert Group represented, belonging to the Long Range Desert Group Preservation Society.  They were a cool bunch of guys, and very willing to answer questions about a subject they are obviously passionate about.  North Africa is my favorite WWII theater and I get to go out in the desert in my own Jeep, so I had a special interest in their display.  Packing enough to camp for four people for a couple of days in a Jeep is a challenge, so I can appreciate what the LRDG were able to do on long range missions.

    Wouldn't be complete without a brew up area:

And on desert themed Flames of War note, a great article was posted on the FOW site about pimping out your Battlefield in a Box desert terrain tonight.  Mike always does a good job on those articles.  Burning Empires is calling me but it's going to have to wait.

Our first game!

My son was on spring break last week and we able to get our first game in Friday night.  Mid-war North Africa.  I had spent most of the week leading up to the game painting three Valentine II's and three Matilda II's, making lists, reviewing the rules and getting the table ready.  I wanted to do an after action report with Batrepper, but it quickly became apparent learning how to play would make that difficult.  Hopefully, next time.

We loaded up on Tacos my awesome wife cooked and headed in the garage.  We had a lot of fun!  The game was quite competitive considering it was our first even though the rules presented some challenges at times due to our inexperience. We played Free-For-All, a good place to start we thought.  I played British and my son the DAK.

I tried to make well rounded lists that would give us an opportunity to learn.

The lists:

My son on the right was the attacker.  Our setup:

My plan was to dominate the right flank and grab the objective but the Panzer III J's were in the way. Initially things were going my way as I had some success against the German tanks.  It went downhill from there with the confident veteran tanks having an edge over my confident trained tanks.  It seemed like the Germans may have been a little luckier, or was it Rommel's superior tactics?  Our artillery were pinning machines.  We didn't smoke once which I thought was a little odd, I'll have to think about that more.

 Trust the Italian truck to get stuck in the only deep sand in the area:

Oh yeah, it's going my way...

 I loose a Matilda II...

 Not much action on the left flank:

It's not looking so good for me.  I've lost the ability to destroy tanks.  But the platoon on the left has Sticky Sticky Bombs and I'm going to assault the Panzers to win the game!  I pass the tank terror test, yes.  Out comes the assault flowchart from the WWPD website.  Defensive fire--what 15 shots from three veteran tanks.  Six hits and I look two feet shorter and my unit is two inches further away.  Is that right: main gun ROF 3 and then 1 for each MG?  What was I thinking?

 I try a different approach but get shot up:

 The Universal Carriers fall victim to the Pak38:

I get shot to pieces and the Panzer III's finish off my tanks and take the objective.  We had a blast with some good laughs and trash talking.

A few rules we had issues with (I'm hoping I have these right):

• Does a 2iC re-roll motivation tests?  No he doesn't as far as I can tell.
• Observers.   We forgot they can't spot for other platoons without both having staff teams.
• The Panzer III defensive fire shot count. Is it really five.  The rule book on page 111says use machine guns against infantry?
• Thinking sixes always hit with the Pak38s but they are not artillery.  
• The difference between Dug in and Gone to Ground.  Still confused.

Can't wait for the next game.