Take That You Beast Part Two! River Plate Project Progress

 Back in September I said that I was going to experiment with WW2 naval gaming, using the Battle of the River Plate as a test project.  Working relatively quickly, I've been able to get my initial order of 1/2400 ships from GHQ painted.  Here is "the Beast", the Graf Spee, sailing serenely on a Geek Villain mat.

Leander-class light cruiser:

HMS Exeter:

Commodore Harwood's squadron in search of the Graf Spee:

"I say, sir, I do believe we've found her!"  Litko splash markers.

I had a very positive experience with the Naval Thunder: Battleship Row rules by Harry Pratt, which I found for purchase as a download from Wargames Vault.  I'm grateful to Keith who runs the excellent Across the Table blog for putting me on to these rules.    Since NTBR uses a written orders and simultaneous movement system (seems to be a hallmark of naval rules!), it is not ideal for solo play, but I suspect with some more thought I could write some general battle plans for both sides with some die rolls for the commander's likely reaction as the situation evolves.  An even better solution would be an opponent!

I was only using the basic NTBR rules and found them easy enough to learn.  The d10 system provides for some unpredictability, and shooting is not easy at the larger ranges.  When a shell does hit, there is a step to assess penetration vs armour (each ship has a data card which can be printed before the game and which provides this information readily).  Penetrating hits cause damage (different shells have different damage ratings, and each hit reduces a ship's hit points) but also cause critical hits, which can be quite dramatic.   There are advanced rules for crew quality, torpedoes, aircraft, etc, but I kept the first game simple.

The RN player has to put his head down and run at the Spee to get within effective range, and this means the Spee has several turns to inflict damage, as happened in the actual fight with the crippling of Exeter.   In my game, Achilles in the lead followed by Ajax attacked on one side, while Exeter tried to get on the other side of Spee.  This gave the Germans time to hammer Achilles with 11" shells, crippling her gunnery and causing a fire.   Here we see Achilles turning away from the fight and on fire, making smoke to hide her escape.   Her brave New Zealand crew never did get the fire under control and she soon sank (more Litko markers).

However, Ajax was relatively unharmed and struck a blow, causing a fire amidships.   Spee's crew could not extinguish the fire, and it spread, detonating a secondary magazine and causing significant damage.  Captain Langsdorf was now seeking to withdraw and fight another day.  By this time, Exeter was adding her fire, though reduced because her aft turret had been knocked out.  Her first salvo missed, but a second landed two fatal hits.  The first caused flooding damage, but the second hit the main magazine (two "O"s on 2d10) and the mighty pocket battleship blew up with few survivors.

At least in this encounter, German propaganda can say that she died fighting, rather than being ignominiously scuttled!

I'm  now debating whether to mount my ships on bases, which would minimize wear and tear on the models from handling, vs leaving them as they are.  The Geek Villain seascape map is quite nice and I like the look of the models sans bases.   This requires a good ponder.   In the meantime, another order from GHQ will soon allow me to fight the Battle of the Denmark Strait, although that order is currently in limbo due to a Canada Post strike.

Thanks for reading.  Cheers, and blessings to your die rolls!

Progress on the 15mm SF Front

Hello friends:

Not much blogging activity here but slightly more hobbying in the last month or so.   Last time I posted here it was about some Darkest Star models that were nearing completion.  Here they are all done and in flight (no, this isn't a scene from Masters of the Air).

The three "flying" models will be Terran military APCs, which will go nicely with some well painted infantry that a friend kindly gave me recently (see below).   All together, they make a decent infantry platoon to go up against my space kitties.  I couldn't tell you the manufacture of the human infantry.  They look properly armed and accoutered.   If you recognize them, pray leave a comment.

Here one section dismounts will the other two APCs remain in air to provide overwatch.  A wheeled recce AFV has gone forward to secure the landing zone.  I have no idea if that is sound Grav Infantry doctrine in future, but it seems legit.

There are a few decals from recently completed plastic airplane model kits that were put to good use.  That flight stand, by the way, is by Litko, and very useful.  I had to drill the bottoms of the models for the stand to fit, and since I was guessing where the centre of balance was, each model sits a little differently.

Not a great photo, but speaking of decals, you might recognize the unit and formation IDs on these vehicles, from a Flames of War set bought years ago.   I thought they made sense for a formation operating on an arid planet.

The entire platoon deployed.  That should give the Kzinti something to think about.  There's still a Terran grav tank to complete and some Canid allies to fight alongside the Terrans against the evil space kitties.

Of course, the universe is dark and full of fearsome things, including these four armed alien gribblies that my friend also kindly passed on to me.  On the left there's a fearsome pack of armoured beasts/bots/?? that look fast and deadly.   I have no idea who manufactures these figures, but I quite like them,

Speaking of deadly, some of these fellows have proper SF weapons and some have old fashioned choppers.  Like the Kzinti, it looks like the prefer hand to hand as much as shooting.   Are they Kzin allies?  Do they hate everyone?  Do they eat everyone?

I'm happy that I've gotten to the point where I could try a decent battle using Xenos Rampant, but I also have some rules sets for larger actions that I've bought from Nordic Weasal and never tried, so I have some options.

Blessings to your blasters!

MP+

#Terrain Tuesday: Trees in Various Scales

Today I’m reviving an occasional feature on this blog/diary, Terrain Tuesday, a chance to talk about tabletop terrain projects I’m working on.   

I don’t think we can ever have enough trees on most battlefields, unless it’s the Western Desert, perhaps.    Lately I’ve been trying to find the odd few minutes here and there to base trees, using some irregularly shaped bases I bought from the Litko website, and trees that I found for sale at Hot Lead in March courtesy of Model Builders Supply, a local company specializing in architectural and hobby scenics.  

 Two newly based large conifers shown with a 28mm Victrix figure for scale.

 

My friend Joe Saunders from Miniature Landscape Hobbies   has a wise saying, that irregularly shaped bases work well for nature, whereas human-made structures tend to look better on geometrically shaped bases.  I’m keeping that in mind as I use up the rest of these nice Litko bases for trees in various scales, including a small 6mm forest (top left).    Hopefully I’ll have that ready to show this time next week.

What terrain are you currently working on?

Cheers and blessings to your modelling!
MP+