Bridgehead and a weak flank: Red Army vs. German Army

Hey, second time we played "The Jaffa Tabletop" (our own ruleset for scale 1/72) within 2 weeks. We had a beautiful showdown between German and Russian Forces.

We tested some new rules and had a lot of fun. Instead of a normal battle our "master of terrain" Daniel generated a complex scenario.

1. Part: The Russians deploy their whole lineup with the mission to gather a bridgehead on the other side of the river. Fearing a strong attack in their flank they had to split the forces to protect the village and their backside. The Germans starts with an unknown part of their linup on the other side of the river to defend the bridge.

2. Part: After 1D6 rounds the rest of the Germans attacks the flank of the russian territory.

Like the battle report before I let pictures speak for themself:

View of a recon plane - the bridge with mission critical geographic points (red dices)

German mortars waiting for the russian attack over the bridge

A mighty 8,8cm FlaK is waiting for action

On the other side: A KV-1A and a ZiS-3 AT-Gun (PaK) - the beginning was full of action

Fire!

Fire!

After a short military exchange the FlaK and the KV-1 blew up in flames. The PaK moved to another position waiting for the german forces on the flank.

Supported by fire from the mortars a heroic russian infantry group tried to pass the bridge

Not a joke - the Germans had the same idea. A SdKfz 251 gave fire support.

That wasn´t a peaceful picnic. Some moments later the russian group had nothing to laugh about.

Meanwhile on the flank: The PaK and another heroic (what else?) russian troop held of a German StuG III.

LEGO-ruins in action (see blogpost before). Russian infantry waited for the attack. Later on the German troops succeeded in capturing the village. Because they got all mission critical points we stopped the game.

 

The bottom line: Playing "The Jaffa Tabletop" - priceless! ;-)

Just a (Lego®) brick in the wall? Kharkov is growing...

Wow, last post was 2 month ago. A long break with many events, e.g. I changed the company. Please forgive my quietness, this weekend was the first time where I could concentrate on my hobby.

So what do we have here?

If you read my post "The Red Army is rising" you remember the russian HQ in Kharkov.
Unfortunately "my" Kharkov is everything you can see on those pictures. Tiny, isn´t it?
Fortunately I found some old ruins build with Lego®-bricks. The bricks are perfect to build houses or ruins in the scale 1/72. I can´t remember who of our guys built them over 10 years ago. The ruins are incomplete, just the naked bricks for the moment.

First I went to a building center and bought some spattling compound and tried to "hide" the characteristic look of the Lego® bricks. My first try was a bad one. Bought a compound that becomes too sandy while drying.

Second attempt.

I went to the building center again *grrr* and bought another spattling compound (hoping for the best!). Now everthing went well as you can see here:

Lego® ruin second attempt

I sprinkled stones in the middle of the rooms to get some asperity.

In the end of this step there should be a ruin that changed from a toy to a basic wargaming accessoire:



Nearly finished step

So, what is missing? Color!
Started with "Erdfarbe" (No. 87, Aqua-Color, Revell) for the floors:

Floors: Earth-Color

Followed by "Staubgrau" (No. 77, Aqua-Color, Revell) for the walls and some parts of the ground:

Walls and parts of the ground: Dust-grey

"My" Kharkov will grow again and again within the next weeks - 3 ruins to go!

Anyway, the HQ of my Russian Army moved into a new position:

"Meeting"

The Commander of the KV-2 gets new orders

KV-2 between a new Kharkov ruin (front) and a toy-ruin (background) - The Commander doesn´t seem to be happy with his orders *gg*

What do we learn? Collect the Lego®-bricks of your kids and build some lovely ruins for the scale 1/72!

I think about some wood, bushes or gras within the ruins. Any ideas in your mind?

Ready for duty: Katyusha, T-26 and SU-76

I am sorry for Russia, they lost the crucial soccer game against Greece and have to go home. However, while watching the UEFA Euro 2012 some russian units (all scale 1/72) got final paintings.

First my beloved Katyusha. For a flashback to earlier phases or a photo of the master see this post.

Katyusha on Studebaker Truck

Second a tiny T-26 (the left one) - sweet but deadly ;-)

left: T-26; right: SU-76

Finally I have to present a good support for infantry - a SU-76. Russian nickname of this self-propelled gun is "Suka" that means "Bitch". Am I allowed to write such naughty things here? *gg*

SU-76 with Commander and Loader

Again I am not happy with the quality of the photos - but hey, at least you cannot see my painted mistakes. Always look on the bright side of life... *whistle*

Hope we can see these babies in action soon...

Project T-34/85 - A front-line tank for the next game!

Some years ago I have build a Revell kit T-34/85 scale 1/72. I painted it standard russian green and pasted up some decals. Finally it ended in a box for relocation *narf*

Resorting my tabletop stuff I found this glorious russian tank. The T-34 was a tank of mass-production and the T-34/85 version got a better gun to penetrate tanks like the german Tiger.

Next time we play around Spring 1944 the german army will have a problem ;-)

my personal "out-of-the-box" T-34/85

got a hit into the right gas tank

Ready for the front-line

Let´s hunt some Huns...

Will post some pictures when it has seen some action :-)

Project "Stalinorgel" - Katyuscha on Studebaker

Before we can start playing an amazing game of tabletop wargaming, God (respectively the seller) gave us a folding carton with our beloved model kit. Unfortunately we have to build and paint it - the game has to wait! As I said in one of the last postings I am not the modeller in our wargaming group. However, sometimes even I have to take a glue or a paint-brush to get new units on the field of glory.

This is the master:

Source: Photo taken at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Moscow, Russia, by Nick Lobeck

A beautiful Katyuscha (german: Stalinorgel) on a Studebaker chassis (for more Info see Wikipedia).

This is the status of the model kit (okay, some of you would not call 6 pieces a kit *gg*)

Katyuscha unpainted

I will keep you up-to-date about my "precious"...



*Update*

After some hours of painting:

Katyuscha painted - without decals

Now I have to choose some decals, do some ageing and get it dirty :-)


*Update 2*

Ageing done. I have qualms to make it dirty. For my eyes it is okay this way:

Katyusha on Studebaker Truck

Red Army is rising

Thanks for your first comments and especially for the first wishes/advices!

GReg (Blog: http://gregswargamingblog.blogspot.de/) commented that it would be wise to start this blog with some pictures of my troops.

In most of our tabletop games I used to play the russian army. One of our guys, Niclas aka. Auld Nick, collected and modelled most of the russian tanks. At the moment the complete red army is stored at my place. Great chance to make some pictures and fulfil the needs of my readers *gg*

Lent (not lend-lease!) the camera of my sister-in-law, build up a small Diorama on my desk (that´s why it´s originally named "tabletop") and shooted:





In August 1943 the Red Army finally freed Kharkov (birthplace of the famous T-34 tank).





Russian Headquarter in the center of Kharkov: Wild discussions about the best route of march between the radio operator and the strategic supreme command.

 



Daniel built this beautiful ruin. Puzzle Picture: Where is the Sniper?

 


Two Political Officers talking about the best place to fly the soviet flag.

 



Hm, maybe wrong camouflage in this situation - that is the only reason why you can see my Sniper ;-)

 


Place to park. Lend-Lease jeeps, trucks, two SU´s and three T-34 waiting for the next target.


I am a little bit disappointed about the quality of the pictures. The camera is not made for close-up views. Till I will find a better one or we will have another game where Monty will shoot some pictures, you can see some real vehicles here: http://montys-caravan.blogspot.de/2012/05/monty-on-tour-militracks-2012-in.html

We got a ride with the SdKfz. 9.
Priceless!  :-)))