From IanW: 6mm Napoleonic Prussians & WWII British and German Markers (100 points)

From Ian:

In an attempt to clear most of the in progress stuff off my desk I give you a mixed bag. 

I got a load of painted figures via Dave D at blog con. All were 6mm Adler but I field smaller units that Adler pack them in so I needed to paint up extra command for them. For the French I painted up five figures per battalion for a total of 20 figures. I had already painted the Voltigeurs before the challenge so these also don't count.

I also got a load of Prussians with enough loose left overs to form six battalions and I have stuck to my usual 2 battalions with colours and one without. So for these six battalions I claim just four figures, the standard bearer!

The 7th Line Regiment was a bit of a problem as I neither had the flag nor ink in the printer so I took another regiments and added the green to the flags, a little faffy but you know how it is.

The 26th Reserve Regiment was just generic Baccus flags as I could not find a flag for them. 

The Baccus Landwehr though are all painted by me (except the dead trooper), these have a compliment of 24 line figures and four out front skirmishing. After the long break on doing 6mm infantry it was really good to get at them again and they seemed to come on really quickly. 

These are the first Baccus Landwehr I have painted up and I really found them a breeze to paint. I have another nine in hand so I can look forward to getting these painted up for the Waterloo game.

All told I have finished off 26 Battalions between the Prussians and French during the Challenge which is a good number to have got through and I am nicely ahead of schedule painting these up.

Almost to the end of the Sniper Reminders for a bit (I really want a break) but these are just for the fun of it. Four each of the Black Tree Miniatures Desert Rats and Africa Korps. on the deluxe sized bases. 

The Brits are working their way through a mix of mines and wire, the little mine sighs I cut out of some spare ASL mine factor counters and added to a bit of balsa. 

The Germans won't be fully finished in the Challenge as I want to add some more bits to the bases but I need to source them and all four bases are presents for a pair of good mates.

Nice score Ian and kudos to you for the wonderful job in getting these new levies integrated into your burgeoning 6mm collection.

Alright, wow, that makes 108 6mm figures and eight 28mm figures for a grand total of 100 points (with a little extra for the great work with the 6mm flags). With this entry and the points from the bonus round you will exceed your Challenge goal of 1066 points. Well done Ian!

Guest Post AAR - A Touch of Blau - WW2 Spearhead

From Greg (with cheezy photo editorial by Curt):

Greetings again challengers! I encourage you to put down your brushes (particularly Ray and Tamsin - give a guy a chance!) and enjoy my final guest post AAR from operation Wacht Am Wascana, my recent trip to Regina.  We had already played 15mm Golan Heights 1973 and two rounds of 28mm Colonial Sudan.  For our last game I had brought along a small (literally) contingent of miniatures for a game system that Curt and I count among our favourites - Spearhead.

Spearhead is a division-level game, with each model or base of models representing a platoon of infantry or tanks, or a battery of guns.  The maneuver elements are battalions - groups of nine to twelve platoons, depending on nationality, period of the war, scenario circumstances etc. 

Spearhead requires that players come up with a battle plan, with written orders for each battalion.  This is a great check on the player's "helicopter view" of the battlefield, and changing these orders is not always easy - again dependent on nationality and what period of the war.  If your battalions end up on the wrong side of the table, you will not easily scramble them over to the other side.

This game was a small one, set in the summer of 1942 in the opening period of Operation Blau, the German drive on the Caucasus region (we all know how that worked out in the end).  It was derived from a much larger scenario from the book scenario book "Where the Iron Crosses Grow" - that is a great book, but the scenarios in there assume players have entire divisions of models at their disposal.

We used a 4' x 4' table. The Germans had a panzer battalion and a schutzen battalion, and they were confronting a Soviet armoured brigade (three tank battalions and an infantry battalion) which had been ordered to counter attack them.  Victory conditions were simple - the Soviets won if they broke one of the German battalions.  The Germans won if they broke two of the Soviet battalions.  I played the Germans and Curt played the Soviets.

The game last about seven turns before the victory conditions were met - by Curt (!@!@!!).  It had all been going so smoothly too - my schutzen lads moved into the middle of the table while my panzers darted around the flank with a panache that would have impressed Guderian himself.  The panzers rolled up one of Curt's tank battalions and were descending on the heavily exposed flanks of his other units.

Victory was in sight, and my panzer crews were practicing their thank-you speeches for the Iron Cross ceremony that was sure to follow.

But then all of a sudden Curt managed to change his orders. For THREE of his four units. This NEVER happens for Russians. You may recall I mentioned that in Spearhead you have to draw up a battle plan, and then stick with it - and changing orders depends on period and nationality.  Well the early war Russian player - even though they get tons of kit to cover the table - can almost never change orders for their maneuver elements, even with the intervention of higher command.  You needed to roll a '6', or at least a '5' if the brigade commander is taking a hand.  But the bugger pulled it off...

This meant my comfortable little Schutzen lads were confronted with a Stalin-level "uuuurrrahhh!" as the Soviet tanks and infantry surged forward.  To add to the mayhem, Curt hot-rolled with his battalion mortars - I lost my MG platoon - ouch - while my mortars fired blanks.  My lads blew it on the approach fire, blew it on the close combat role, and then blew it on the morale check! F***!  German attack halted while division sends reinforcements over - and no doubt the German commander in question was sacked for letting this little counter attack set things back! 

To Curt's credit he was a little queasy about the victory - after all the table was covered in charred BT-5s and other wrecked Soviet bits.  But looking back I made a major mistake - not attaching some armour directly to the infantry! I was sure the infantry's PAK 38 battery, together with their organic anti-tank elements, would easily handle the BT-5s (which didn't even have MGs for goodness sake - Curt had to roll "6"s on a D6 to even scratch my infantry units).  But treads are treads, and when they are driving over your fox hole it sucks - even if they are on obsolete tanks.

A good lesson for next time - and another reason of why I love Spearhead.  It's a great example of balanced abstraction & engagement concepts in a thin set of rules.  It provides great flavour for the period, and keeps players worrying about what division-level players should be worried about - "why are my orders not working!?!"

This is my final guest AAR from this trip, but it is not the last AAR for the weekend - Curt ran a game on the Friday night for the regular Regina gaming crew of which I will say no more other than it is connected to one of his many recent bonkers projects, and I was thrilled to take part!  I'm sure Curt's showman instincts will provide a proper rollout here on his blog in due course...

Thanks again to Curt and Sarah for their wonderful hospitality.  Five games in one weekend - now that's a weekend! Curt is visiting Winnipeg soon, and I am hoping to fire up a gaming reception to make the return visit worthwhile.

From IanW: 15mm and 6mm ECW and Napoleonics (187 points)

From Ian:

I did all these at the same time so I had a full desk

All the unbased are 15mm Museum Miniatures ECW for Matt. First up the four mounted dragoons that will be going on some of he bases with the dismounted guys for FOG:R then we have two lots of ten dismounted Dragoons all Royalist and are Robert Howard's regiment. The green turnback is pure conjecture but they were clothed in red. The trousers are of mixed colours as these often ended up being replaced faster than jackets or liberating from, well anybody.

The Cavalry are Sir Thomas Aston's Horse, another Oxford Army unit so I painted them with blue jackets as most of the Kings Oxford army seemed to be clothed in blue. I have done twelve of these. I really liked the guy with a pair of pistols so put a bit more detail on them. The cornet has an old Revo flag attached and seems over small especially as the guy is carrying an impossibly long and stupid flag pole he must have dug out of the ground! I did however have fun replicating it on the trumpeter's banner, all told I felt that came out well.

Next up? well that would be the same regiments but this time in 6mm by Baccus! This is a project that has stalled over the last six months so needed a bit of love. I got carried away and did enough dismounted Dragoons for two regiments so will change the facing on one lot at some point. I have yet to start Matt's guns and crews but have done two of mine to be going on with.

Sticking with 6mm I have also finished another Adler Napoleonic Command stand, all the pics were really bad so you get the best of a bad lot. It's just heavy fog and drizzle here day after day so no good pics.

I know I get points deducted for not basing (fine by me) but how about a base with no figures? Actually it has 20,000 6mm painted figures but all have cloaking devices switch on  ;-) Actually a test piece for the new style basing I will be doing for the Prussians.

Oh I also had a job interview and we discussed my 6mm painting of figures, how's that for style points? Now waiting to see if I get it which would be a godsend though when they asked when could I start I replied not till after the Painting Challenge ends on the 20th LOL.

Lovely work Ian. I think my favourite is the 6mm Napoleonic command stand - gorgeous work.

This group will give Ian 187 points. Best of luck with the new job prospect!

From IanW: 6mm Cavalry for The War of the Spanish Succession & Napoleonics (99 points)

Now, back to glorious colour provided by Ian:

Some more 6mm fun here, all on dobbin's this time.

First up we have five regiments of Baccus WSS Line Cavalry, these being Le Roi, Nassau, La Vallier, Cosse, Royal, then the three dragoon regiments of  Grand Royal, Du Roi and La Reine.

Each regiment is of twelve figures for a total of 96 figures, again Matt want's to base them himself. I just need to do his command now.

Talking of which, here is the second stand of my French Command, these are a bit keener than the last one to get at those Pesky English/Russians. 

These are like the last Adler castings, the two Hussars are more or less the same figure but one horse is rearing up so looks a bit different.

I was trying to paint one of these figures per day but for the last couple I have not had the chance due in part to playing a game all Sunday, what a sinner eh?

Great work Ian! These cavalry all look excellent but you continue to wow with those Adler command stands. Brilliant.

These cavalrymen will give Ian 99 point to add to his tally. 

From IanW: 6mm War of the Spanish Succession & Napoleonic Mounted Command (55 points)

From Ian:

Here we have unbased 96 infantry, 4 guns with four crew each and 3 mounted figures based. Anyway below for public consumption.

I bought these 6mm Adler Command at Derby last year, with another 21! I am painting one per day till I have them all done, they are being based three to a base at the moment. These are part of the command for my French Napoleonic army, I already have some Baccus but the lack of poses and three or four Napoleon's meant I wanted to mix it up and the quality of castings really helped in the painting. It was lots of fun bringing these together. 

Next up is the last two 6mm regiments for Matt's WSS, here we have Regt Hessy and Regt Zurlander, both of these are far more colourful than most of the others I did so a bit more interesting to paint. 

To go with these I also painted up the four guns and crews to support them. Now I have the cavalry and command to finish then that's a whole Baccus army pack painted in well within a month if I get my skates on.

Lovely work Ian. While I certainly like Baccus' offerings I have to say that Adler really comes through with the detail at this scale - that beautiful command stand is a perfect example. 

This fine collection of figues will give Ian 55 points.