Fallschirmjager Squads (BA)

This year I fell completely off the wagon. At the start of 2012 I had enough Flames of War and various other miniatures to keep me busy for the entire year. However I seem to have lost the ability to resist buying new miniatures, I bought 28mm French and Indian Wars, Dust, Saga, X-wing and now 28mm Bolt Action miniatures. Not only did I buy tons of new miniatures, I also started six new game rule sets including a Song of Blades and Heroes.

Well at least I've been enjoying painting all the new 28mm miniatures after having focused on 15mm for so long. I have finished all my Fallschirmjager squads, now I'm just waiting on the support weapons.

Jagers moving past a knocked out Sherman in Normandy.

Counterattack!

Moving up to the front.

An FG 42 on the attack.

Fire, Fire, Fire!

An 81mm Mortar, supporting the assault.

An MG 42 keeping watch on the road.

The Platoon as it stands now.

Hetzers doing work (FOW)

This weekend at the shop I decided to run all the Hetzers I had. My initial thought was to use the Hungarian Assault gun list in order to get veteran Hetzers and some good support. However I bit the bullet and used the Confident Trained Hetzers from Grey Wolf. Trained is not typically my first choice but I couldn't deny that I would be getting lots of platoons in this army and the support was veteran. So here is the list i ran:

 HQ- 2 Hetzers
Platoon 1- 4 Hetzers
Platoon 2- 4 Hetzers
Platoon 3- 3 Hetzers
Grenadier Platoon 1 - Full with Panzerfaust
Grenadier Platoon 2 - Full with Panzerfaust
Artillery- 4 10.5cm Howitzers
Artillery- 3 15cm Nebelwerfers
Anti-Tank- 3 7.5cm Pak40s
Sporadic Stuka Gs

pts 1775 (we were playing a 1780pt game)

When I got to the shop I ended up facing off against Robs Soviets. He was running a Motostrelkovy, that was loaded for Bear, or perhaps Grey Wolf... Okay, moving on his list was something like:

HQ- with Kommisar
Motostrelkovy 1- 1 platoon
Motostrelkovy 2- 1 platoon
Motorized Anti-Tank- 4 57mm Anti-tank Guns
Tank Destruction Company- 4 57mm Anti-tank Guns with Anti-Tank Rifle
Motostrelkovy Artillery Battalion- 12 76mm Guns
3 IS-85's
3 SU-100's
4 SU-85m's

With ten front armor 9 and 10 Armored vehicles and eight anti-tank 11 guns for my trained Hetzers to deal with, things were not looking good. Then we rolled for the mission and got Breakthrough, I was the attacker and the defender had mobile reserves so that meant only one of his armored units would start on the board, that helps some.

Robert surrounding my deployment quadrant.

My Hetzers deployed as far up as possible.

Thats some packed together armor.

Robert deployed a platoon of 57's on a hill overlooking my deployment, with a infantry screen in front of them. He chose the SU-85m's to start on the board, with their front armor 9 and gun of AT12 I needed to avoid shooting it out with them. I deployed as close to Robs troops as I could, I also decided to use my 105's breakthrough gun to dig out the 57's. I left a platoon of Hetzers, the infantry and my Pak40s in reserve to come on behind him.

After the first turn of shooting, his 57's are down to one gun and the infantry lost a stand.

The first turn I made a very big mistake, I forgot to move and started shooting, I then failed all my stormtrooper moves to spread out. Not only was I a huge target for his artillery I had planned on assaulting the first turn, on well.
His SU-85's killed one Hetzer and bailed another, his 76mm guns firing a bombardment also managed to destroy a Hetzer, I rolled a 1 and he rolled a 6.

Hetzers flank the Soviet positions.

The surviving command and AT rifle go for a side shot.

The second turn I was able to move up and Assualt the infantry and kill all within range, the last 57mm gun was also destroyed but the platoon passed moral and upinned. The Hetzers then began to move around the hill towards the objectives. His AT rifle missed his shot and was killed the next turn.

My reserves show up right when I needed them.

On turn three I got my first platoon from reserves, the Hetzers came on behind his assault guns.
They were able to move up and kill two of the SU-85's. In his turn he got no reinforcements, his second platoon of 57mm guns bailed one of the newly arrived Hetzers.

One of his overloaded SU-85m's stayed bogged the entire game.

On turn four I got another platoon from reserve, and brought on a grenadier platoon, they moved towards the bogged 85. During the Soviet turn my lack of respect for his 76mm guns nearly cost me a platoon, Rob had been moving his 76mm guns towards the objective. He fired with one gun in close range and several others at long range. He hit the Hetzers three times and I rolled three ones. This resulted in one Hetzer destroyed one bailed and the previously bailed Hetzer running. But luckily I passed my moral check and they stayed on the board.

The IS-85's arrive but are far from the objective and slow.

The Hetzer herd advances.

They did away with the SU-85's.

The setup at the end of the game.

On turn five I get more reserves and Pak40's come on behind a hill to hide. I decide it is time to roll for planes and my Stuka G's show up to take on the Soviet tanks. My Hetzers kill the the SU-85's, my artillery pins his artillery and infantry and kill a team or two. The Stukas bail a IS-85 and kill two 57mm guns and one 76mm gun. The Soviet guns fail to unpin and everything else is to far from the objectives, we call it then. A 6-1 for the Hetzers, woohoo, although if the SU-100's and IS-85's had shown up earlier it would have been a very different game.

The breakthrough gun rule for the 105's helped me dig out the enemy.

Fallschirmjager (BA)

Work has been very busy for the last few weeks, between photographing academic awards ceremonies and college football tailgates, my free time has suffered. However somehow I've managed to squeeze in a little painting. Thanks to my local hobby shop tempting me with the beautiful Warlord Games Bolt Action miniatures, I'm back to painting 28mm.

The Falschrimjager

Some of the guys in the shop were talking a few weeks ago about Bolt Action and I mentioned how much I like the Fallschirmjager mini's, guess what was on the shelf the next week, blisters of Fallschrimjager. So displaying my usual lack of self control in the hobby shop I left with all the Fallschirmjager they had. I can't resist these great miniatures of the battle worn German Paras. Then of course I needed the Bolt Action Rulebook, dice and support weapons for my platoon, its a dangerous cycle, getting into new games.

 81mm Mortar

Command group

Various Jagers

First Game of X-wing (XWG)

So like most gamers I'm a total geek, and few things can make me geek out like Star Wars.

A work-in progress.

I've been a fan of Star Wars since I first watched the Empire Strikes back at a friends house. Late at night watching the battle of Hoth for the first time on a grainy old 20 inch TV and a worn out VHS tape, was all it took. I got into things just as the Expanded Universe was beginning to flesh out George Lucas' universe. Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy and a plethora of computer games such as Rebel Assault I & II, Dark Forces I & II and of course the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games, kept me full immersed in the fight against the Empire. I read all the novels and comics of the mid to late 90's and loved them but with the prequel trilogy and later EU novels (spaceships made of coral shooting lava, and powered by black holes, WTH), I lost interest...

Fast forward to 2012, and Fantasy Flight released the X-Wing Miniature game. It had been years since I paid anymore than passing attention to Star Wars, the odd video game, KOTR I'm looking at you, and catching the occasional episode of the Clone Wars series. But something about seeing those miniatures revived hope in me that maybe this game could recapture some of that magic of the original trilogy and the Alliances battles against the Empire.

It's hard to capture nostalgia, but FF seems to have done just that with the X-Wing Miniature Game.

Last week Matt and I met up at the local Hobbytown USA and got into the action.

Red Squadron making a run at the Death Star.

Matt's Rebels: Luke Skywalker, Two Red Squadron pilots and a Rookie, with a couple of Astromechs spread around. This was our second game at 100pts, I the first game Matt had taken only three X-wings with lots of extras. My five TIEs that swarmed them and shot them up at close range, so he decided to add another ship in his force.

Maareck Stele and his flying circus.

My TIE's: Maarek Stele with a cluster missile, Howlrunner, Mauler Mithel, Backstabber and a lowly Academy Pilot. Both Mauler Mithel and Howlrunner had marksmanship.

Matt's great Death Star tiles.

An so it begins.

The Imperials keeping formation.

The tough X-Wings form a wedge to break through.

The point of contact, several X-wings were damaged.

But Mauler Mithel was destroyed by a Red Squadron pilot, I didn't even use his marksmanship.

Now the maneuvering begins.

Stele and Backstabber come into the flank of the fight.

The Rookie X-Wing nails backstabber, but he amazingly barrel rolls through the fire (amazing rolling)

Stele's cluster missiles finish off a Red Squadron X-wing.

Frantic maneuvering.

The battle spreads out.

Luke's shields are knocked out good thing he has Artoo with him.

Things get close.

Howlrunner is surrounded and destroyed.

Luke goes head to head with two TIE's and is hit multiple times.

But it is the Acedemy pilot who makes the kill.

The last two damaged X-Wings try to get some breathing room.

But the TIE's close quickly.

Backstabber lives up to his name and the Rookie pilot is destroyed.

The last member of Red Squadron evades long range shots.

But there are to many TIE's left and the Death Star is safe for another day.

We are still new to the game and checked the rules oftern and took our time with maneuvers, even with that this game only took around an hour. We had several exciting moments such as, Matt rolling three attack dice and getting two hits and a critical then I rolled three evades with three dice. And Luke and his Rookie pilot took a tremendous amount of fire before being destroyed, Artoo restored shields the whole game and the Rookie just evaded everything.

All in all a ton of fun and I'm looking forward to playing more of this game.