Hello, Operator? - Nuts! Blood upon the Risers 2nd scenario

Before dawn, June 6th, 1944 - Le Val, France.

"Hey Sarge, this here farmer says he can guide us to where there's a military telephone exchange. He says there are some soldiers billeted nearby, but they are still asleep. I bet if we knock that place out we can put a pretty big kink in the Kraut's call tree!"

My objective is to destroy the equipment within the telephone exchange (the long house on the left of the picture below) within 12 turns and escape off any table edge except along the road to Fresville, passed the long house.
There are two PEFs on the table marked with white dice. The half track is a proxy of a truck.

I rolled 2+1 times in the reinforcement table for destroying the Flak in the previous encounter and I got 1 officer with pistol, two NCOs with Thompson and carbine respectively and four soldiers with only two rifles. To this I added the three parachutists and my Star from the previous encounter.

I split them in three groups and fast moved towards the objective.

The ones are the back are without rifles and searching the high grass for any bundles. The group in the middle took the road whereas the one at the bottom struggled to cross the bocage.

Closing to the objective.

They found a bundle, but it only contained magazines for carbines and rifles but no weapons! So they only have one carbine and a few grenades.

The group in the road getting closer but stopping to wait for the others before being spotted by the enemy.

Once the rest caught up, they moved forward and resolved the PEF. It was half squad and they all fired first, but missed all their shots! 

The Airborne returned fire killing two of them and making another one ducked back and retrieved his leader who was seriously wounded.

In the next turn they advanced again and stunned the remaining Kraut first, and then capped him.

I left two men to guard the road for incoming PEFs from the houses.

The rest took the phone exchange without opposition.

The ones searching for weapons stayed hidden waiting for the other PEF to move in the open. When they finally did it after hearing the gunfire, they were caught in the open. My NCO killed their leader with his carbine and then the rest of the squad duck backed to the bocage from where they had come, but one of them could not cross it and got stuck on the wrong side.

In my turn I threw a grenade, killing the one outside and suppressing again the rest behind the bocage.

Then, seeing that another PEF from a nearby house was closing, I decided to leave the table.

The rest of my forces, after spending one turn shooting the equipment within the telephone exchange, also left the area.

My Star remained with one NCO for one more turn to try to find another bundle in the high grass but there was nothing.

I never scored a seven in the activations and German reinforcements did not appear immediately after the gunfire, so I had the opportunity to finish the scenario in six turns. It was a walk in the park.

1/72 IMEX Easy Company.

I have painted some reinforcements for Blood upon the Risers ongoing campaign for Nuts! from Two Hour Games.

They are all IMEX 1/72 hard plastic figures with sharp details and dynamic poses, except the AT gun that is from S-Models.

Nuts! Blood upon the risers. Flash and thunder

Having finally lost all my wargaming buddies I am looking again to solo gaming, and more specifically to Nuts! for WWII skirmishing. So after re-reading Nuts! and its supplement Blood upon the Risers, I made a lot of bocage and walls, painted some paratroopers and re-watched Band of brothers to put me in situation.

Flash and Thunder is the first scenario of the campaign. According to the scenario there are one Flak38 battery and two PEFs (Possible Enemy Force) plus 1d3 more PEFs. I scored three more PEFs so in the end there were five in total. But in this scenario PEFs can be either enemy or allied troops.

Situation
It is approximately 1:25 am June 6th, 1944, near Neuville-au-Plain, France. The anxiety of waiting for the green light to jump whilst flying through a wall of flak has given way to the fear of being alone on the ground in the dark in nemy territory. Your parachute ruffles quietly as you quickly remove your harness and gear up.
Nearby, an antiaircraft gun fires  into the night sky, while small arms fire sounds in the distance.
With no way to tell which direction the objective lies, all there is to to is to find more paratroopers and pick a direction to head.

You begin with just your Star.

The white dice tell the Rep of the enemy PEFs and the red die the Rep of my Star. I darkened the pictures to represent night time.

I head to the closer PEF at the south but then it moves 16" away from me towards the Flak battery.

Then I decide to follow the road up north, under the cover of the hedges.

PEFs continue moving in different directions and when I close the Flak battery I finally spot one and resolve it. It turns to be three paratroopers! As it's German phase they roll In Sight Test and open fire to the crew of the Flak.

The three Germans get OD, OOF and Duck Back respectively, and one paratrooper armed with pistol is out of ammo. Small dice tell soldiers' Rep; red for Germans and green for Americans.

Then I resolve a near PEF which results to be three Germans. In the firefight one of the paratroopers gets hit but he is only stunned. The three Germans are OD thanks to the firing of the two Thompsons.

My Star keeps moving along the road and spots and kills a German scout who had taken cover in a ditch when he saw the paratroopers assaulting the Flak.

 The other three paratroopers regroup and cross the field towards the road.

My Star keeps advancing and reveals another PEF. He is in cover, so he can see them but they cannot see him in the darkness, so as no In Sight Test is triggered he can aim and fire first unmolested. Now the leader of the enemy patrol is down and then the two survivors go prone and disappear in the high grass.

He moves again and does the same with the next PEF. The other paratroopers are catching up him.

Suddenly, all the remaining German troops in the table are suppressed.

Then they start to close crawling hidden in the grass.

I think it is not worthy to fight them and wisely decide to leave the table. Game over.

The mission took eight game turns and two hours to play.
It was a tense and exiting game and I have to say that I don't remember having so much fun in a game in a long time, so long live to Nuts! and I'll see you again in two weeks.

Happy New Year!

Getting ready for the new year I have finished this unit of barbarians for Oathmark.
As the other first half, I just base-coloured, dipped and gave one light to them, for a fast rank-and-file tabletop level unit.

And now I'm off for the beach to swim and sunbathe, and get rid off this little hangover. 

May you all have a good and prosperous happy new year! 

 

Oggi, tunnel dweller, and some skinny neighbours

This post is to show my latest painted Dwarf who is joining Sven's group in the next episode, plus some enemies.

The Dwarf is from BTD and sculpted by Kevin Adams and the skeletons from Foundry.

I love these Dwarfs so full of character.

I went for a quick and easy painting in black and bone. After that, I splashed some diluted pigment on them to get that brown touch on bones.

Happy Christmas to you all, fellow wargamers!!!

A fool and an assassin

Little after they return to the nearest town with the woman and the kids, a short tempered Dwarf, with an axe bigger than him, approaches to the group with some urgent information.

His name is Grom and he has lost everything to the Greenskins, so he hates them like only a Dwarf can hate. He tells Sven he knows the hand who is behind of all this lately Orc unresting. An Orc shaman has come to the valley and he is rising all Orcs from the hills with a mysterious and dark objective in mind.

Grom tells them that to stop all this Orc unrest they must kill the shaman, and that he knows he is not far, and with just a bodyguard accompanying him. They must hurry and strike before dawn!

This is Grom, my latest painted Dwarf and new companion to the group. They are now Sven's six.

So they send Bubba the Halfling armed with a poisoned dagger to kill the shaman. Being more a minstrel than a warrior or an assassin, the troubled Halfling sneaks behind the encampment and through the bushes, while the Dwarfs take position around it, and as close as they can without raising the alarm.

It is still very dark and the sentinels do not see them coming.

Finbul kills the first sentinel with a clean shot from his crossbow,

whereas the rest of the Dwarfs dash into the Orc encampment.

Grom in his eagerness foolishly impales himself into the spear's sentinel!

Juggo wounds another sentinel but does not kill him. Suddenly all the Orcs come out from their tents and Sven and Snorri face two Orcs each! Bubba keeps approaching from behind, waiting for the shaman to show up.

Fortune smiles the bold and so Juggo, Sven and Finbul kill one Orc each. But now Snorri is in trouble.

The shaman appears and Bubba tenses in anticipation. Snorri is fighting for his life.

Snorri disengages and one of his opponents is distracted by Sven, and now Snorri wounds the other Orc.

He finally kills him but now Juggo is down and Sven is slightly wounded!

Snorri runs to help Sven while Bubba faces the Shaman, who casted a spell but failed.

He poisons the shaman, who disengages and runs to escape pursued by Bubba, who finally finishes him. Snorri falls.

After much fighting and bleeding, the rest of the group surrounds and kills the last and most fierce of the Orcs.