Good Fences Make Good Cover

(With apologies to Robert Frost)

Stone fences are a useful bit of tabletop terrain. They are commonplace in many rural and agricultural areas (NW Europe, eastern US)and they make good cover for infantry. I recently finished these terrain projects, stone fences by two different manufacturers.

First is a resin stone fence by UK manufacturer Hovels, ordered through a US distributor, Michigan Toy Soldier. I had a good experience with their customer service, and would recommend them to others had I not discovered, while googling their link, that the owner of MTS was recently sent to jail for defrauding the Amex card of Peter Jackson, LOTR film director and toy soldier fan. No Mad Padre blessing for Michigan Toy Soldier!

I bought four straight sections (about 8" each) and four corner sections for ACW gaming, and they look like this, though I can't imagine why a farmer would want a totally enclosed field! Maybe a gate or something is in order.



Painted them gray, failure of imagination. At first I did some in brown with drybrushed ochre and yellows, since not all rocks are created gray, but it didn't look right.

To show scale, here's the fance with some old RAFM 25mm figures behind them.



Also, last year while I was visiting The Dragoon, a great toy soldier store near Barrie, Ontario, I picked up a set of Italieri 1/72nd scale plastic stone walls, which gives you a lot of modular pieces, both intact and ruined. As with other Italieri terrain kits, the plastic is sturdy and the detail is pretty good. I opted to make two sets, one an intact fence for a paddock or gate, which I could drop on the table, and the other a semi-ruined fence, for which I created a permanent base with a piece of MDF board.

For some reason, the next three pictures are huge. Sorry bout that.



To give you a sense of scale, here's the finished terrain piece with some 20mm Jerries.



And the two pieces with a very tasty Britannia miniatures PzKwIV which is primed and waiting its turn in the paint shop.



I'm hoping to get these terrain models into a battle and an AAR here soon.

Lard Evangelism: An I Ain't Been Shot Mum First Game

After just over a year's hiatus, madpadrewargames is back. Well, maybe. No promises. But a post now seems like a step in the right direction.

Last night I had three officer colleagues from CFB Suffield over for a wargames night. They were James, a gunner captain who works for our Range Control section, Matt, an armour captain who works in our G3 planning cell, and Kevin, a construction engineering captain from our G4 group. Not a lot of gaming experience - Matt, the youngest, had played some Warhammer 40K and Squad Leader, the others some board anr role playing gaming over the years, but that was it. All are Afghanistan veterans, who have all heard shots fired in anger, so I was curious to see their reactions. After some of my wife's delicious chili and cornbread, a tasty bottle of Chilean red plonk, and some decent BC Tree Beer, we headed downstairs to the wargames table.


The game I wanted to introduce them to was I Ain't Been Shot Mum which I've mentioned here before. This flagship game from UK publisher Too Fat Lardies, sets a benchmark for simulating leadership, friction and the fog of war. The scenario I chose was a LArd-written one, "Over the Hill" - you can find the player briefings for this scenario here on the UK Durham Wargames Club website. A Commonwealth infantry company with a troop of supporting armour is tasked with clearing a low ridgeline defended by elements of the SS Hitler Jugend Division during the Normandy campaign of 1944. It's a challenging table to reproduce on the tabletop because it calls for hedgerows everywhere.

It was also a challenging table to reproduce photographically as well, since the only camera I had was my iphone and it wasn't really suitable. There are only a few naff photos in this AAR

Due to figure constraints, I could only represent two of the three British infantry platoons (I could put two platoons on the table thanks to the commission I gave my friend James Manto, whose work I am quite happy with),



Battlefront late war Commonwealth infantry painted by James Manto.

so I reduced each of the two SS defending platoons by a full section each. James took the defenders - I think the gunner in him liked the fact that his assets included the FOO with a supporting battery of 105s. James choose to spread his two understrength platoons in a wide arc across the middle of the table. The advantage of this deployment was that he would use his half sections as tank killers, counting on their Panzerfausts to kill the Allied armour on the road. His plan was to pull the sections back and consolidate them back into platoons once they made contact. The downside, as I warned him, was that his isolated half sections would lack the firepower to go toe to toe with enemy infantry, which indeed would be their downfall.

Matt and Kevin put their two rifle platoons on either side of the road and rushed the armour foward ahead of them, with the support platoon mounted in Carriers on the road behind them. They plotted their three prep fire barrages, or stonks, and I rolled the results secretly. Here's a nice example of the fog of war feature of the game when an umpire is present. The Allied players never learned the result of their bombardment until after the game, so they were whinging about how they didn't hit anything. James didn't learn the results either at first. Since his OP was near the AT gun position, it was two turns before he learned from a survivor that the Pak75, his ace in the hole against Allied armour, was gone, and he never learned that one of his platoons had lost a half section from the bombardment until it was engaged.


After the preliminary bombardment, no sooner did they come enter from the table edge they were in contact. James was very lucky with his Panzerfausts, He killed the lead tank, a Sherman Firefly, immobilised a second Sherman with track damage, and rolled an incredible 12 on two dice to fire a shot between two Bren Carriers into the Company Commander's Carrier. I decided this was an automatic kill on Niner Actual, and the two platoon commanders would have to step up and take the battle forward.

Coaxial fire from the surviving Shermans and fire from the Bren Carriers raked the hedgerows and got some lucky hits on the Panzergrenadier half sections. James discovered that subsequent shots from his half sections, once they were under fire, even unaimed suppresive fire, were not as likely to succeed as he hoped. As his isolated half sections took casualties, they also could not withdraw as quickly as he hoped, and were easy prey for the two Canadian rifle platoons as they pushed forward.

The first German fire mission from the 105s arrived at a preplotted point on the road, catching the Support Platoon in its carriers. A 2" mortar team and its Carrier were destroyed, and another Carrier had its intrinsic Bren gun destroyed. From this point on, Matt and Kevin would groan each time James' FOO card was drawn, but James also discovered that due to the randomness of the card system and the uncertain end of each turn thanks to the Tea Break card, the artillery card was not drawn as often as he liked and thus his artillery was not as deadly as he hoped.

The two Canadian platoons now pushed forward, No 1 moving to the left of Ferme Valee, the terrain feature in the centre table, with No 2 moving to its right. 1 Platoon was bumped by the second SS platoon, and took some casualties, but the scattered German half sections did not do much damage and were easily brushed aside. No 2 platoon began taking fire from two German MMGs situated behind Ferme Valee, which elected to fire while the Canadians were still behind a hedgerow. The protection doubtless saved 2 Platoon from destruction in the open, but as it was one one section was pinned and took so many wounds (in IABSM wounds really reflect loss of cohesion). Matt and Kevin brought up a Vickers team from the support platoon, which along with its Bren Carrier started duelling with the German MMGs. Matt and Kevin were shocked by the deadly effect of the German MMG bonus fire, but decided to leave the one section pinned behind its hedge to absorb fire and moved their two unengaged sections of No 2 Pl to seize Ferme Valee and take the MMGs from another angle.

THe allied armour was not proving too helpful. Matt and Kevin kept missing the "6" on 1d6 to get their immobilized Sherman back in the fight. The second Sherman suffered some engine damage when caught within the template of James' second 105 fire mission, but gamely continued. It's coax fire proved murderous, killing Panzergrenadiers each time he fired. That coax gunner was easily the Allied star of the game.



Last mobile Sherman supporting No 1 Platoon as it pushes towards the ridge.

Towards midnight we called it a night. Because we never gave the British a set number of turns to achieve their objective, the battle would have likely gone their way. Here are the final British dispositons:



No 1 Platoon and supporting Sherman on the left, taking the turn in the road leading to the ridge. They have brushed aside the German platoon facing them. In the centre, two sections of No 2 Platoon prepare to assault Ferme Valee while its third section on the right duels with the two German MMGs. James was trying to call a 105 fire mission down on Ferme Valee, and that might have messed up No 2 Platoon. However, No 1 was mostly intact, had good leadership from its Big Man, and was poised to rush up the road. Assuming its engine kept working, the supporting tank would have leant weight to 1 Platoon, assuming it did not fall prey to the Panzershcreck team, but that was really the last unit James had available to contest the ridge. His two understrength platoons had been shredded and scattered, and his plan to have them engage, delay, and then fall back on the objective had not worked. In retrospect, Matt and Kevin wished they had mounted one of their two rifle platoons and tried to rush it forward, since they felt the support platoon was not of great help to them and tied up their transport capability.

Final verdict, likely Allied victory. All players seemed to enjoy themselves. James fought a good delaying battle, given his lack of familiarity with the rules. Kevin and Matt were punished at first for leading with the armour, but they handled the infantry well, keeping their platoons together to use one section for a firebase and then another for close assault. All three liked the rules, enjoyed the elements of uncertainty, and felt it was more real than an IGO UGO format. I suspect they will be back for more and one even expressed an interest in getting his own rules set.

Rabbits in His Basement

No rabbits in my basement, but that's the name of a blog launched by a friend. For several years James has been amusing his friends with wise and funny takes on life in his emailed "Adventures of Rubberman". His blog promises more of the same as well as shots of his painted miniature wargame figures (he does some nice work), like these finely painted Victorian era Scots infantry:



James has his own painting service which I've used and happily recommend. He is also the mastermind behind Hotlead, SW Ontario's best miniature wargames convention, which runs every year at the end of March.


Good work, James, keep the posts coming.

ModelMaster Ruined Building

December hasn't been a kind month in terms of painting projects, but I did get this scenery project finished, a fairly simple to build plastic HO scale building kit from Modelmaster. As I understand it, Modelmaster purchased the molds of a West German company (possibly Faller?) and repackaged them for North America.



As you can see, the box said "hand weathered parts", but it still needed some painting. I decided to paint the window sills an offwhite, and painted the bricks where they have been sculpted in places where the plaster on the building is missing.









Finally I wanted to give the building the feeling of being in a ruined German city, so I used some 20mm propaganda posters I'd printed and hung onto years back from warflag.com. Wow, I just looked at that site, it's been a few years and there's a lot of cool stuff there. Definitely going back.

Four tanks in two scales

It's been a while for sure since I posted anything here. What can I say, I've been busy and I couldn't take my paints and brushes on a taxpayer's paid holiday to CFB Borden. I celebrated my return these last few weeks by getting some work done.

These are two Battlefront Panther G's in 15mm. The turret numbers are by Dom Skelton. I just hopped on Dom's website and noticed that he's expanding his line of German decals, though he hasn't yet started the SS divisions and the division I'm most interested in for my Normandy project is the Canadian's initial SS adversary, 12th SS.










Two 1/72nd scale Armorfast Cromwells - very easy kits to put together, made for wargamers. The decals are also from Dom Skelton and the divisional patches are from Guards Armoured. I am planning to use these tanks to represent the Welsh Guards as per the wargames scenario booklet published by Too Fat Lardies. I especially like Dom's tank name decals. The decals look ok even though they are meant for 15mm models and these are 20mm. The radio antennas are from a dollar store whisk broom. I tried making some camo nets for the Cromwells using bits of gauze bandage.

Some British Tommies finished

It's been a little quiet at the Mad Padre's workshop this last week, since the sunken road was finished and posted here. That project got some very nice reviews on www.guildwargamers.com, making me think I'm a better terrain modeller than I am mini painter. Reason for the delays - my wife and I decided to watch the entire ABC series Jericho for the first time and found we couldn't stop watching, it consumed our evenings, and also I'm back to my 6am runs (I get up at 5K) and my bedtimes are getting earlier. I'm determined I won't paint more at the cost of gaining weight and losing my fitness, so it's back to the search for the elusive balance.


Some time back I was tempted by a package of British manufacturer Valiant's hard styrene late war British/Commonwealth infantry. These are hulking great figures, closer to 25mm than the 1/72nd scale they're advertised to be. However they have lots of options (the sprues are very similar to Games Workshop products) and they are a treat to paint up. Here's what I got done this last few weeks - they're painted in the light blue patches of 3rd Canadian Infantry Division.

Platoon commander, company commander and signaller:




Infantry section:







Bren gun team:




Tonight I need to get back to my Guild Britannia Russians project, as Sept 20th is creeping up on me and I need to get the little blighters done.

Sunken Road Terrain Project

During my American Civil War reenacting phase (I can't quite call it a career), one of the best events I attended was a march through the beautiful countryside of Loudon County, Virginia. I remember marching through deep sunken roads, with banks above head height, easily 3 to 5 metres, topped by stone walls, trees and vegetation. These were much deeper than the well known Sunken Road at Antietam. I always wanted one for my ACW tabletop, and so it became a project for this summer.

I started with MDF board but to shape, some pink styrofoam insulation, and white carpenter's glue. One the foam was cut into shape, I sculpted it using a hacksaw and sandpaper.





Once the sanding was complete, I filled in the rough bits and holes using plastic wood putty, slightly watered down. Yes, for you Canucks, that is a cup of Tim Hortons in the top of the picture.



Next I painted the whole thing with leftover brown housepaint liberally mixed with play sand. The paint and sand, combined with the wood putty, left the whole thing as tough as rhino hide, which is good for toughness and durability. I then drybrused the whole piece using yellow ochre and some lighter shades.

Next I added Woodland Scenics products for the vegetation:







Here's the finished piece with some of my 28mm ACW collection to give a sense of scale:







While some of the contours are a bit clunky, they are also flat enough to place troops, guns, or additional terrain features such as tree stands. For the time cost I think I have a nice terrain piece to add interest to some ACW battles, and which can also be used in European gaming such as 20mm WW2.