Hürtgen Forest with Five Men at Kursk

I have painted four companies in 15mm during Summer to play Five Core Company Command from Nordic Weasel, but this is my first foray into WWII in this scale and I still need a lot of stuff to paint. Below you can see two houses and two tanks I have just finished, but I have to paint many more plus AT guns for both sides that I have not ordered yet, more infantry and an incoming DBA army that I will paint as soon as I receive it, so I do not think I will be ready to play Company Command until Christmas.

Then I remembered that I also bought Five Men at Kursk from Ivan, and that I tried it just once with my son, and after that I forgot it. As this ruleset is squad level, I decided to play it in the meantime with my 1/72 collection before I sell it. Yes, I am also moving into 15mm in WWII and getting rid of everything else.

I needed scenarios for squad level action or even better, a campaign to play while I am painting 15mm, and then I thought I could continue with the one I started from Nuts! by Two Hour Wargames, The Big Hurt in the Hürtgen Forest by Darby Heckles. I had played only the first scenario, and decided to continue from that point, so today I am playing it, Western Union. I am using this campaign for Nuts! plus its PEF system for enemy encounters, and Five Men at Kursk for combat.

So this is the SITUATION (taken from the supplement).

"September 18th , 1944 - Between Roetgen and Lammersdorf, Germany.

Earlier this morning we lost communication with several outposts. Fearing the worst, a patrol was sent out to check on the situation, and contact was reestablished. Everything was fine, but the landline to the positions has been damaged or cut. Night is fast approaching, and we need to have a good line to them in case they are probed or need support, so we’re sending out a repair team.

The patrol thinks that there might be Germans patrols probing the area too, so we’re sending you along to protect the repair team. Keep them alive, and get the job done."

US forces deploy in the bottom left corner. The black wire is from my phone and the thinner one I could find. There should be 3 PEFs on the table but there is only 2 because I saved the lieutenant in the first mission, in which I had to KIA and several WIA. As I did not feel reading Nuts! rules about recovering wounded and I just played with 10 men from the original squad of 12. The grass squares represent hight grass that gives concealment, but I did not have enough, and all the bottom left and right corners are supposed to be covered in that.

I divided my forces into three groups; six of them including the squad leader and also key guy (+1 in rally), the two men team to repair the line, and the rest of my squad with the BAR. As they did not have enemies in sight, I could activate them in groups.

The two German PEFs turned into a MG team and the worst possible result from the chart, a Puma! I had to read all the rules about tanks as I did not expect any, and neither my men as they did not bring any anti tank weapon!

The Puma fired but missed and only one men resulted Nervous. Blue tokens represent Nervous, yellow ones are Scared and Brown ones Down. My first KIA resulted from MG firing.

I was in deep shit but then I thought my mission was to fix the line and not to kill the vehicle, so we run into the woods and get out of sight of the enemy vehicle. Reactive fire from my men on the other side of the forest suppressed the enemy MG. The tank moved on the flank trying to spot all the infantry that had disappeared behind the woods.

The repair crew fixed the military telephone line, but all the line needed to be checked so it was not over yet! 

A hero tried to assault the Puma with hand grenades but went down.

Germans received another MG team as reinforcements. 

Americans also received half a squad as reinforcement but sadly no AT weapon. The new squad race forwards in a Scurry action and then hug the dirt and disappeared into the tall grass. Another valiant tried to assault the tank as there were the only chance to damage or finish it, but he was also down.

I tried a third time in the following turn and had success! Sadly, I did not take any more pictures but my troops killed both German MG and could check the whole telephone line. The mission was a success.

The Art of War. In memory of a friend.

I discovered this post, that never got finished nor published, when my friend Antonio Santana Alonso and me tried ADLG a few years ago. It brought me memories so I decided to finally publish it in memory of my friend Antonio who got cancer and passed away this last month. Farewell my friend.

"This is my fourth battle of Art of War, a system I am really enjoying, and so far I have played 100 and 200 points games. So today we tried a semi-official rules for games at 120 points which are great as they allow you to deploy two divisions with one general each for almost the same number of units than games at 100 points with only one general and one division.

We could play two matches in an evening, swapping sides in each game. We played Seleucids vs. Romans with Pergamene allies.

All the forces are H&R 6mm armies from my friend Antonio.

Army lists:
Initial deployment. Romans (me) with allies on right flank (bottom left) to the left and Seleucids to the right."

General War Wagon from DBA 3.0 IV/3 Anglo Norman army.

This is the last piece to complete the army. I was holding it until I could find an appropriate printable figure to represent a painted wooden statue of St. Cuthbert. I also made his banner with a piece of paper and then painted it.

Well, so here you have it, and now the army is completely finished. I'm eager to try this little tank on the battlefield!

A friend mocked the size of the eyes of the priest but I painted like that to represent it is a painted statue, not a person.

I hope it is true what it is said about the Standard of St. Cuthbert and that it will give me many victories :-)

Two new companies.

I painted two more full companies with their supports. So now I have two German companies and two British ones, four in total, and right just before holidays end.

I still have enough unpainted miniatures from the same boxes to do one more company of each nation, and I may paint them in Xmas holidays, but for now I already have enough units to play some games. What I need now is buildings and vehicles; so I think I'll finish two Stugs III I have on the desk, and then do all the buildings to have a proper battlefield to play.

BTW, Jack if you are reading this, I tried Crossfire's introducing scenarios with two friends who were mildly interested in the game. One came from Warhammer and told me he'd read the rules but he didn't in the end. Moreover, he was quite distracted during the game, made many mistakes, confused some units and lost almost all of them. He did not ask for another game and I didn't bother to ask. The second one, who came from Bolt Action, sent me a message a day before the game to tell me that he tried to read the rules but they were too difficult and quit. After failing into finding opponents for Crossfire, I've decided to focus on Company Commander as it can be played solo :)

I am in a local whatsapp group with more than 50 members and who call themselves historic players but they only play Bolt Action, Tanks and Flames of War, games I tried but don't like. It's a pity where I live nobody wants to go out of their confort zone and try new things even if I bring both armies, table, and rules translated into Spanish. I suspect Crossfire and similar old rulesets are difficult to younger people, used to more reachable and friendly readable and playable games.

The four full companies ready for battle.

Some officers and specialists on individual bases for Company Command.

I found these boxes for 1.20€ each that are perfect for storing my little armies.

Late War British Company

My first Late British company. After this, I am doing two more German and British, so four companies more in total, and then vehicles and houses.

Full company with 3 platoons and platoon commanders, mortars, MGs and PIAT.

A closer view. Models are fast painted with diluted paint and a wash. No lights.

My first two companies. Germans on the left, Brits on the right.

I am using pigments for the bases but the mat varnish is killing the colours and whitening the bases. Can you tell me of any way to fix that?

15 mm Late War German Co

The latest boxes of Germans in Normandy and Late War British from PSC are good models and a bargain too for a box of 140 miniatures per 30 €. I have bought both boxes and I am planning to build three companies out of each box for Crossfire or similar rulesets. I have also bought both heavy weapon boxes although their miniatures are slightly smaller.

Here is the first one, a German Leg Infantry Company 1944-45 that contains 3 platoons with 3 squads and 1 platoon commander each, plus 1 company commander and company heavy weapons 1-HMG, 1-120mm and 1-81mm mortar.

These ones below are a few extras for other ruleset that I will play while I paint all the companies, Company Commander from Nordic Weasel.

For those who read up to the end, a question for help: Can you suggest me a good and not too complex WWII ruleset at company to battalion scale and with one base representing one squad, other than the following rulesets that I know?: Crossfire, Company Commander, Blitzkrieg Commander, Flames of War, Cross of Iron, Battlegroup, Poor Bloody infantry, Squad Leader, Rapid Fire or Nuts! Big Battles? TIA.

Dead Man's Hand - Banditos

A friend from the hobby gave me these "bandidos mejicanos" to play some DMH games with him and some other friends just for laughs.

The game is straight forward and easy to play, and very fun too, especially thanks to the cards that allow player interrupt others' actions.

I gave a quick paint work to them so I could play it and also resume my scheduled painting.

DBA 3.0 IV/3 Anglo-Norman done.

I finished the knights and call it done although there is still one more unit to paint, the War Wagon General.

DBA 3.0 IV/3 Anglo-Norman I

Well, here it is all the infantry from my new army finished,  Anglo-Normans from Essex with a lot of monoposes.

4 x 4Sp

4 x 4Bd (S) that can dismount.

Details of the shields (none of them have their shields facing forward).

From left to right, 1 x Ps, 2 x 3Bw, 1 x 4Lbw and 1 x Mtd 3Bw.

Close up of the mounted archers. This is the first time I ever see or have that kind of unit and I am itching to try it on the battlefield.

Defence

Defence mission is pretty straight forward as there are d3+1 objectives to defend and the same number of Spawn points in front of them like in a mirror. Spawn points create Blips with enemies from the first up to sixth turn and then 1d6 turns more. The player has to resist and keep all the objectives under his control. He also can try to attack and clear some Spawn points.

I introduced tanks for the first time. Outmercs is basically infantry action, but a vehicle or two may appear sometimes.

I got three places to defend, the buildings with a red dot, and opposite to them in yellow, three Spawn points. 

On the first turn a team of three enemies (mercenary humans like my squad) appeared and were quickly shot down by rifle fire. Then a light hover tank showed up and was also destroyed with one shot from the rocket launcher.

Here the die is marking turn 5 (I forgot to take pictures for a while). On the left, the specialist in Combat armour came out of the building to shoot with his laser rifle at some enemies ducking back behind the wall, whereas on the right my leader and two more men went down by enemy fire.

Some enemies outflanked me and threw a hand grenade inside the building.

Another light tank appeared, it was shot and damaged but could shoot back at the rocket launcher.

The tank advanced to snatch an objective as well as to support the assault on the first building, but luckily I received some reinforcements.

One enemy assault trooper got into the house but he was killed. The tank got closer but it couldn't spot anyone inside and did not shoot.

It was turn 11 when some of my men came out from the building to finish off the wounded and concussed enemies on the field while my rocket launcher was shooting at the back of the tank and destroying it.

So I could resist the attack for 12 turns without losing any objective but three men. I guess I left too much open space in front of the buildings that allowed me to easily shoot  to all incoming enemies.