Charlie Foxtrot Rubble

 

Now this is a really good terrain extra, that won't break the bank but will add a little realism to your WW2 scenarios, especially those set in war-torn Built Up Areas. These resin pieces are designed to fit around the walls of bombed out buildings, either on the interior or exterior faces, to create a rubble strewn effect, complete with smashed bricks, tiles and window frames. They are available in a pack of eight for £12, which sounds like quite a lot but it does save you the hassle of doing it yourself and works out at £1.25 a pop, which seems reasonable for such a useful bit of scenery. I think they're great and will be using them to decorate my wrecked Battle of the Bulge buildings for Bolt Action.

Bolt Action Yanks [40]

 

I've been marking Year 8 geography exercise books all day today so no painting this weekend, which is becoming a bit of a theme of late. There's always a rush of work at the end of the Autumn term but this year it seems to be particularly bonkers, although nothing compared to primary and junior schools, so I can't really complain. Anyway, the good news is that my tank force for the late war US infantry platoon has now been expanded to include a 1/50th scale M4A3E8 'Easy Eight' 76mm Sherman, making a Tank War scenario a distinct possibility. It only cost me £20 as well, so cheaper than the unpainted, unassembled kit equivalent. I'll need to do a serious re-paint of the Korean War dragon markings, however, before I can deploy it alongside my other bog standard Shermans in the Ardennes, Rhineland or Alsace Lorraine.

X Wing: The Force Awakens

We were off Xmas shopping this afternoon, now that our Finnish exchange student has gone home (at 5am!!!) and things are returning to normal. I was supposed to be getting a new pair of school shoes for the middle one and a few presents for the other two, but ended up with a nice new box set of the latest version of X Wing instead (not sure how that happened?). Anyway, the urchin is now barefoot and I have some shiny new Tie Fighters and a T70 X-Wing to play with, so mission is accomplished.

 

I spotted the new game in WH Smiths of all places and was surprised to find that it was cheaper than the old version at only twenty two quid, which seems very reasonable for a full-on game. I really should play more X Wing but it usually only gets un-boxed in the holidays, when I have the time and energy to sit down with the kids for an afternoon of gaming. This holiday, I'm hoping to do just that, especially as the film will be out by then and the sprogs will be suitably enthused!

Iron Cross

This looks interesting. It seems as though it's aimed at a platoon level games despite the official blurb, with lots of tanks and support units and relatively few infantry, judging from the composition of the army deals that are listed on the Great Escape Games website. I like the sound of 32 pages of rules, of which the core mechanisms only take up 10 pages, with a definite fast play impression from the synopsis on the website:

Iron Cross is compact, easy to learn and has tons of decision making, tension and tactical nuances. What it does better than anything on this scale is give you a game that feels like WWII and looks like WWII. It’s a game that gamers can quickly pick up, without the extra padding in other WWII games to enable the player to concentrate on close quarters engagements between opposing forces of tanks and infantry.

 

Iron Cross is elegantly simple. Iron Cross uses a dynamic activation system which means players are always involved and constantly faced with tactical decisions. Playable in any scale, forces represent formations from company to battalion size. This book contains the rules for Iron Cross, scenarios and orders of battle for German, US, British and Soviet forces from 1944-45 in the European theatre of operations.

 

The inevitable tokens and chits look pretty flash too, although I'm not a big fan when it comes to littering the terrain with loads of nick nacks. I may well add this to the Xmas stocking, although I have plenty of other rules that I can play around with for 28mm. If it's anything like the other Great Escape Game skirmishy rules, it will be probably be £25 well spent and will give my late war US infantry something else to do in 2016.

Finland at War

A new book for the Kindle Xmas holiday reading list...guess what Father Xmas might be bringing me from Lapland in a few weeks time (assuming the chief elf agrees?).

Charlie Foxtrot Models

 

I ordered a 28mm laser cut ruined house kit from Charlie Foxtrot Models at the weekend and it arrived today. I haven't assembled any of this range before, although I do remember hearing about it somewhere and did have a nice chat with the designer at Colours back in September, after being gobsmacked by the fantastic V1 launch ramp model that he had on display.

 

I'm really impressed by this kit too, which comes bagged with a set of instructions and loads of mdf bits. The main walls, roof and floor sections are cut from 3mm mdf, so really sturdy and able to take some serious punishment. The other components include the usual windows, doors, shutters, chimney parts and roof beams together with a whole load of rubble and wreckage to sprinkle about.

 

There are a whole load of other kits available from the Charlie Foxtrot web shop thing including some VBCW stuff, some really nice Eastern Front rural buildings and a good selection of Normandy town buildings too. I particularly like the resin rubble pieces that are designed to fit around the ruined houses, so I've ordered a pack and a couple more of the wrecked houses for my Bolt Action project.

 

It turns out that the designer lives only fifteen minutes from my parents house in Cornwall as well, so it's good to support a local company with some really nice products. If I can think of a valid use for a V1 launch ramp in 28mm and a 28mm pontoon bridge just like the old 1/76th scale Airfix kit, I'll be after those too!

 

http://www.charliefoxtrotmodels.com/

 

Bolt Action Winter War

 

I've been pondering ways in which to make use of my new Cigar Box Battle tundra terrain cloth of late and have drawn up some ideas which may well end up on my Xmas list this year. I already have some 28mm British commandos that I can paint up for raiding in Norway and some late war Germans in greatcoats and smocks that I'm planning to use as opposition for my US reinforced Battle of the Bulge infantry platoon, but this still leaves some room for a other things.

 

As I'm planning to scale back my half completed Chain of Command Japanese project to a more manageable Bolt Action size, I could add another platoon sized project for next year for Bolt Action. The obvious choice would be Soviets or Finnish* troops for the Winter War, so that is something I'll be investigating in the run up to Xmas. There's a handy army builder deal from Warlord which would give me a good basic force for the Finns but the Soviets need some more thought, although I do really like the Crusader range in greatcoats and furry hats.

 

(* we actually have a Finnish exchange student staying with us now...so it must be a good idea!)

Bolt Action Yanks [39]

 

 

In what's left of the year, namely the next three weeks before I'm off on holiday, I've decided just to tackle the handful of 28mm Artizan US figures for the long-running Bolt Action late war project, leaving my other plans for the coming year. As you can see, this isn't a very ambitious selection but is all I'll be able to manage in the very busy run up to the end of term. There's a 57mm anti-tank gun and crew, a 60mm light mortar and crew, a Forward Observer, a company and a platoon commander, an NCO and a few riflemen and carbine armed G.I.'s. I may try to squeeze in a vehicle or support unit of some sort but time is short, so this lot will be my focus for December. 

Bolt Action Bombed Out Buildings

 

There's a 15% off sale on at Timeline Miniatures so I thought I'd get some more laser cut mdf buildings for Bolt Action, as I haven't put one together for at least a couple of weeks! The idea is to use them for war damaged winter built up terrain in the Ardennes, Rhineland and Holland, so I may add some timber framing and other features to make them look the part. I also ordered a similar kit from Charlie Foxtrot models, which is a company I'd never heard of before but which has some really nice ruined buildings. I doubt I'll get round to assembling any of these before Xmas but they will help to fill up my stocking.

Bolt Action Yanks [38]

In the game the other day Mike used a medium mortar with spotter to pin down one of my infantry units very effectively, while outranging my 60mm light mortar and preventing it from doing it's intended role of laying down smoke to cover my assault. I realised that I could do with up-gunning my mortar capability, so had a rummage in the spares box to locate the 81mm mortar that I didn't get round to painting up when I originally started the project.

 

I found the mortar but couldn't find enough figures to use as crew, at least not ones that looked right together, so was about to give up the whole idea when I realised a very simple solution was staring me in the face. What if I unglued the 60mm mortar from the exiting crew base and substituted the 81mm one instead? I had used three crew for the 60mm mortar, when the rulebook states you only need two, so it was an easy swap over to the larger three man crew base for the 81mm mortar.

 

 

I then thought, why not try to save the 60mm mortar and re-base it with the two crew figures that I had in the spares box? This was a bonus and made good use of the otherwise redundant mortar tube. The Bolt Action main rulebook states that only two crew are needed for the light mortar but the Armies of the United States supplement says you need three, so another rummage turned up a spare MMG ammo supply figure to do the job, just in case.

 

This just left the spotter figure for the 81mm, which was the original purpose of the whole thing, so I based up a prone NCO with walkie-talkie radio on a separate base, ready to be deployed with the mortar as and when I needed some long range fire support. This means that I now will have the option to deploy either a light or a medium mortar complete with a spotter, adding some pretty useful indirect firepower to the reinforced infantry platoon.

 

Job's a good 'un....although I still need to paint them up!