Allied Walkers (DUST)

My painting and modeling have been very slow lately, with starting a new job and traveling to visit the family. So today I'm putting up some DUST miniatures I painted for a friend a while back.

First up a a couple of Black Hawks from the revised core box set. Once again I can only praise Fantasy Flight for how great these miniatures are. All I had to do was tape off a camo pattern the spray the model, pick out a few details and wash it, easy.
These two came together well with their winter white wash camo, they are certainly different than my German desert force.

Great looking walkers.

I don't think they will be crossing any boggy terrain with those tiny feet.

Unfortunately I don't recall them being very effective in DUST tactics.

Giant PIAT's, whats the world coming to?

Next up is my Hot Dog/Pounder/Mickey, etc. I like how in DUST a great deal of attention was paid to maintaining a consistent aesthetic for each faction. The mix of sci-fi and historical elements are well balanced, in my opinion.

The Hot Dog, ready to burn the enemy out of hiding.

The Pounder should probably have a 90mm gun instead of a 17 pounder, oh well.

I haven't played any DUST in a while, but after seeing what new models they showed a GenCon, I fell off the wagon and ordered the Heavy Recon Grenadiers and Heavy Command Squad. And let's not get into the new X-Wing game...

We Three Kings (FOW)

On the prowl.

Well, it's not exactly a secret, but I do love the look of most German vehicles. From Sd kfz 251 halftrack's, 8-rad's, Panzer III's and the lovely Jagpanzer IV/70's, I can't get enough of the sleek look and sharp lines they show off. And while the good ole Panzer III takes top prize as my favorite German tank, I do have a soft spot for the biggest tank of them all, the Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B.

So when Battlefront recently released the new Konigstiger, sans-zimmerit, I needed to get my hands on it. The problem was I already have three Tiger II's, and those three Kingtigers have never seen the board as a group before. Because I, as an mech infantry player, rarely ever use the big cats, and certainly not three of them. But whether or not I'll use a unit in FOW has never stopped me from buying beautiful miniatures, just ask my Sturmtigers and Nashorns. But to make room I did sell off one of my old zimmerit covered Kingtigers to a local player.

Now on to the new Kingtiger miniature. The larger tank kits that Battlefront has released over the last few years are great, they are almost model kits as far as parts and detail is concerned. It also comes with two tiger ace dice and some Fallschrimjager tank riders, they are great sculpts too. I had no real issues with flash on the metal parts of with any imperfections with the resin. After construction and painting I got the remaining old cats out and got some shots together.

Tiger 115, ready to see some action.

I've been adding fuel drums to a lot of my recent late war German tanks, the big gas guzzlers.

I choose to go with the ambush pattern camo for this tank.

I added a few stowaways just for kicks.

Next up are my two older Kingtigers, they have seen a good bit of combat from time to time. They typically go out in their early Porsche configurations to back up my .21 Panzer division in Normandy.
Here they are in their Henschel version.

The Commander I 01.

They have been through the ringer before.

I've added hearts to all my Company Commander tanks, so they are easier to recognize.

Good old Tiger 112.

It hasn't had an easy time.

Now all the big German cats together.

That is a tough sight to see for any Allied tanker.

Where ever they're going, they're going slowly.

In the next few weeks I plan on getting these three guys out and running a schwere panzerabteilung from Grey Wolf. They deserve to get out on the board for their time in the sun, and artillery and air attacks...

Peiper's Push (FOW)

After looking over the new lists from Devil's Charge, several list jumped out at me. Unfortunately those list were all American lists and since I'm only beginning to collect a U.S. force I don't have the minis to run them yet.

Something I do have, are Germans, lots and lots of Germans. So for this weekends FOW gaming I put together a Kamfgruppe Peiper list.

First off a little back story, I don't normally run SS. I know that opens a whole can of worms concerning play WWII Germans in general but it's simply rule that I follow, no SS. I prefer the image of the beaten up war weary Wehrmacht fighting it out against the Soviets in the cold winter of 44, that's why I started playing Germans, and probably why the Sperrverband appeals to me so much.

But for last weekends game all the shiny equipment and fearless rating was to much to resist. I would be facing Rob's LW Soviet Strelkovy, complete with fortifications in a 1750 pt Late War game.
Rob did'nt want to get his whole army out for a pregame photo but his list was something like:

HQ with a pioneer group
A Strelkovy Company with 2 platoons
A Strelkovy Company with 1 platoon
A Light Tank Company with 8 Valentine MK VIII's
A Tank Killer Company with 3 SU-85m's
A Assault Gun Company with 3 SU-122's
A Full God's of War Battery
A Anti-Aircraft group with the Russian .50 cal.
With lots of trenches and at least three minefields.
At 1750 pts.

A armored spearhead to breakthrough a fortified infantry battalion in a city, woohoo.

My List was a Kampfgruppe Peiper list with:

HQ of 2 Panthers
A Panzer Platoon with 3 Panthers
A Panzer Platoon with 4 Panzer IV
A Gepanzerte Panzergreinadier Platoon - Full
A Panzerspah Platoon of 3 Pumas
A Cannon Platoon of 4 Sd Kfz 251/9 D (7.5cm)
And a Self Propelled infantry gun platoon of 2 Grille K's

We rolled for the mission and got, breakthrough or was it counterattack I'll check that tonight. I was the attacker and the defender chose which quadrant to set the objectives in and his own quadrant to deploy in. I then deployed across the board from him, and his reserves come on in the opposite quadrant. Here is the board, with a city near the center.

 

The board before deployment.

The Soviet lines.

The Soviet deployment in his quadrant, the objectives were to the right.

The German Deployment, with minefields hemming them in.

I had the first turn and used the Kampfgruppe Peiper special rules to move my panzergrenadiers and Panzer IV's during the recon phase with the Pumas. Unfortunately the Panzergrens couldn't dismount at the wire to remove it on the first turn.

The Germans at the end of their first turn.

During the turn the Panzergrens dismount and prepare to gap the minefields and the rest of the force moves up behind them. The Pumas and Panzer IV's move around the minefield through a gap by the church. As the Soviets start their turn, my force is very vulnerable to a artillery strike.

Preparing to gap the minefields.

Amazingly the Soviet devastating bombardment fails to kill anything, it pins the infantry and bails a few vehicles but no casualties. The infantry unpin and clear both minefields in the shooting step, none are killed but they are pinned by exploding mines.

The armored elements push through the gapped field, and the 2iC gets bogged on the Church Wall. 

The MK IV's pushing for the objective, however the Soviet reinforcements will come on in their flank.

 It is turn three before I can get through the minefields with most of my force and with all of his armor coming in from reserve on my flank I have to be careful. His artillery had failed to kill anything the second turn either, but my luck would not hold.

The God's of War gets busy this turn.

Artillery bails my bogged 2iC and he runs, then destroys a half track and they run.

I continue to advance on the objective with the Panzer IV's and move everything else up slowly.

The Valentines come in an kill a MKIV and two Pumas after they fail to recce away.

The MK IV's and Panthers do nothing in return fire.

 The Valentines come on and kill a Panzer IV and two Pumas, the last Puma then runs. The Panthers and MK IV's shooting back kill maybe one Valentine.  And the Grilles kill a couple of 57's with a bombardment. He then gets all three of his  remaining reserves on.

Things are bloody for the bottle necked Germans.

The next turn is brutal for the Germans. The Soviets kill two of the 7.5cm Halftracks and a Grille with the SU's,  Artillery kills a Panther and the 57mm guns which can move 6 inches, thread the needle between buildings and kill another. Also a Panzer IV is double bailed but stays. The last Panther runs, and the Panzer IV fails to remount with protected ammo. Not going good.

The heavy toil on the German vehicles.

 The Germans next turn was a little better. Combined fire from the Panzer IV's, CO Panther and Cannon half tracks killed enough of the Valentines to make them run. The Panzergrens, minus half tracks, machine gun the AA guns and kill them all.

The Valentines finally ran and the Commander is moving to deal with the SU-85m's.

The SU-122's make a move at the traffic jam in the village and the SU-85m's tangle with the German CO. One Panzer IV burned but the other had remounted and kept them at half strength.

The return fire kill all the SU-122's and the CO snags a SU-85m, the other hit was bounced by their front of 9.

The Panzer IVs start slowly killing the 76mm guns.

The fearless Panzergrens fail tank terror twice to assault to SU-85's.

And its up the CO to kill them. Rob saved three close range Panther shots before they died.

The remains of the infantry and the CO move the help the Panzer IV's on the objective.

While my CO and infantry killed the last of the Soviet armor, the Panzer IV's killed most of 76mm guns that they could see. The Grilles and cannon platoon killed the 57mm AT guns yet their commander would stay for the rest of the game,  making a total of six confident moral checks with no re-roll.
We were both one platoon away from having to take company moral checks each turn.

CO Moving to help out.

Then in very Soviet fashion he got me. His infantry had been sneaking up on my cannons and grilles as they worked over his guns, I had been keeping together for defensive fire purposes ye out of his spotters line of site. However the turn before his CO had moved up and could see them in the street. He ranged in on the my Grille command half track and clipped one of the 7.5cm half tracks along with one of his own infantry. The artillery then ranged in on its second try with plus one and bailed the cannon half track and killed the Grille half track and its passenger. That dropped both platoons below half and they both ran. My company stuck around for one more turn shooting the small Strelkovy below half but they passed and so did the command for the 57mm guns. He had nothing to get my tanks off the objective now with me avoiding his artillery spotters, but then my moral check came up.

The last turn, both of his Stelkovy were at or below half.

The Moral check.

And on a one the Peiper spearhead quits the field and the Soviets are victorious!

This was a great game with some wild dice rolling. I failed 10 of 16 fearless moral checks but that was balance out with some great shooting, my two Panzer IV's accounted for four 76mm guns and a 57mm gun.  I don't think Rob ever ranged in  on his first try once in the game even needing only threes, yet he then would hit almost every thing under the template.

I have face Soviet artillery hundreds of times over the years and when when running veterans have never really had any problems dealing with it. But with trained troops navigating minefields in a city, it was devastating.

It was a great game but I think it's a sign, no more SS for me!