All Tanks: Disposable Heroes goes Heavy Metal

Hi Kids,  We decided to try something new, Disposable Heroes without any infantry.  One of the lads bought a couple early war British tanks and wanted to test drive them, so I gathered a few Huns tanks to see what would happen.  Since they were Matildas I had a pretty good idea, but maybe I'd get lucky...  you never know.

 The two Matilda's are showroom fresh, haven't even been painted yet! Poor guy's paints are out on loan!  Backing them up are two Schneider P16's, one of the sexiest halftracks ever! (Although with a snub-nosed 37mm gun they are almost useless.)  IIRC all these are 1:56 from Company B.

 Facing them across the table are two Pz38T's from AGN and two Pz4's from Westwind.  I know, I know, I still have to build the Pz4's with the snub-nosed 75mm gun.

 The long view: Huns will start at the far end, the Brits at the foreground.

 The 38t's head for the high ground, the 4's go into the ruins.  Green chips signify that they have already been activated for this turn.

 The Brits spread out as well.

 Climbing the central hill, the Matilda slows down to 2 inches a turn....

 Setting up with some good lines of sight....

 First blood to the Huns!  A P16 catches fire!

 Revenge!  A 38T takes some return hate mail.

 Three weeks later, the Matilda finally reaches the top of the hill, where nearly every Hun vehicle can see it.  And hit it.  Which happens many times over the rest of the game.

The Hun tanks start blasting away at the Matilda, all to no effect as its armor is hugely thick.

 The second Matilda sneaks through the village and blasts a Pz4!  On the right, the 38T starts accumulating hits, most of which penetrate.  The triangles denote penetrating hits.

 Same shot but slightly wider, showing the two Matildas.

 The P16 sneaks around the flank while the ground floor Matilda closes in.

 A violent death seems imminent for the 38T, as it has suffered 6 penetrating hits, is immobilized and has three dead crewmen!

 After bouncing 7 or 8 hits off the Matilda on the hilltop, the sole surviving Pz4 switches targets to the P16 closing in.  In early war even the P16's gun can cut through the side armor of a Pz4.

The end of the game, all the Huns have been killed, three by the Matilda on the ground floor.  I'm telling ya, early war is a lot different from what all the Nazi propaganda would have you believe!  There's nothing wrong with a Matilda, its armor is super and its 2pdr gun is pretty good!  Just goes to show you want the counterattack at Arras could have accomplished!

More Ratlings for the Legion

Since I finished my Ratling Legion Platoon back in 2011 I have been looking to add more models to round out the squads. Bottom feeding on Evil Bay finally paid off and I picked up another five of the oop Rogue Trader Ratling Snipers.

They were painted when I received them so into the simple green. I finished cleaning them up and now just have to file down the mold lines. This group will give me twenty nine Ratlings, one shy of a full three squads. I plan to use the "Fingers" model as the thirtieth sniper until I can round up another ratling.

Always Remember the Ratling Legion's Motto "The Legion is our Bread Basket!"

ColKG

Another group of Second Chance Skeletons

The fruits of Evil bay, another lot of second chance skeletons.

This lot is in a little worse shape than the last group of Second Chance Skeletons I picked up. One good thing about the lot is once I sorted the parts I found the bits for three more skeletons, so 27 instead of 24 models. They came with plenty of extra bits but several of the skeletons had broken arms not included. they still had the shoulder bit left just the rest of the arm gone. Instead of just cutting the shoulders off, I decided to test a conversion idea.

I am trying to avoid using any Tomb King shields. I don't have enough of the old style round shields with the different bosses for the number of skeletons I have. I  looked through my spare shields and decided on using some extra chaos warrior shields to add some variety to the units. The chaos shield is a little big but not too big.

A better view of the conversion. I trimmed down the arm on the back of the shield and hollowed it out. Then I used brass wire to connect the shield to the shoulder.

I added green stuff to fill out the arm. It looks so so at the moment. The truth will come out when it gets painted. In hindsight, I will sculpt the forearm behind the shield before I glue the arm on next time.

ColKG

Beastmen verses Dwarves Warhammer Fantasy Battle Report

The Beastmen take to the field once again. This time 1500 points against Will L's Dwarves.

The Beast Horde. I took a Greatbray shaman with shadow magic, two lvl 2 Bray Shamans with beasts magic, Ghorros Warhoof with six centigors, Four units of ungor raiders with musicians, a block of 35 gors with shields, a tuskgor chariot, and two units of six scouting harpies. Wills army consisted of a Runesmith, a Dragon Slayer, a battle standard bearer, three units of thunderers, a unit of hammerers, a cannon and a organ gun and a unit of dwarf warriors. We rolled meeting engagement for the the deployment. After rolling for reserves I only had one unit of Ungor raiders held in reserve while Will ended up with his unit of dwarf warriors and the Hammerer unit in reserve.

I didn't take a terrain set up picture but this is after my first turn movement. Will set a unit of thunderers up in the tower and deployed the rest on on either side of it. I scouted the harpies close to the dwarf line. To avoid the harpies being targeted by the sorcerous portal in at the end of the table I ran an ungor raider unit out to take a hit for the team. Ghorros and the Centigors rode into the valley of death.

Nothing like a natural 18 roll to cast a spell. you will also notice the mysterious river is placed on the table edge and not down the middle like last game.

The Harpies move up but can't assault first turn.

The Dragon slayer on the other hand has no such limitations.

Ghorros and the Centigors falls in a hail of lead.

The Dragon slayer kills off all but one harpy and turn to meet his doom. In the back you can see that both the Hammerers and dwarf warriors arrive from reserve.

The high point of the game for the Beasts. The Brayshaman and gors charge into the Dragon Slayer while the Chariot charges the Organ gun.

The Dwarf warriors move up as the Dragon slayer whittles down the gor herd.

The cannon drops a couple ungor raiders while the thunderers destroy the chariot..

The thunderers in the tower wipe out the harpy unit.

The other thunderers and hammerers move to close in on the gor herd.

The Dragon slayer finally is finished off but not before killing nine gors.

The Hammerers charge into the gor herd.

The cannon snipes the last bray shaman.

The Hammerers win the combat and the Gors break and the dwarfs run them down. I forgot to bring my Ungor raider unit in but i doubt tit would have made much of a difference.

Another bad day for the beasts. 

What did we learn. Never leave home with out the wargor battle standard bearer, ever. The Wargor with the beast banner would have made all the gors str 4 and they would have had a better chance to finish off the Dragon slayer before he whittled down the gor unit. 

The Gor herd should be forty models strong, thirty five is not enough. I need to have enough models to take casualties and still be able to fight once they cross the table. 

Gors with shields are out. I like the gors with shields and their parry ward save but out of the twenty wounds the gor herd took I made two saves. If I would have had extra hand weapons on the gors instead of shields they would have thrown eight attack against the Dragon slayer instead of the four. Later against the Hammerers I would have thrown 12 attacks instead of 8. Once again if the Wargor with the +1 str Beast banner would have been in the unit they would performed much better. 

Magic worked well enough, I just had my Brayshamans both killed by war machines. I need to either put them in bigger units or keep them out of the line of fire against gun line armies. If I am going to continue to run the Great Bray Shaman as my General in the front of a gor herd I will need to give him a ward save and add a magic weapon so he can help in the combat. 

I still want to use Ghorros and his unit of Centigors just because they are cool. Next time I will try not to run them into the dwarven guns. 

The Tuskgor Chariot did well enough but next time I might bump it up to a Razor gor chariot for that 5 toughness and five wounds. 

I need to rewrite the list and play some more games.

ColKG

My Little World Of Dementia 2013 year in review.

Once again a New Year has arrived, time to take a look back at last year.

First, My Little World has passed the 100,000 page view mark in 2013. The plan was to break the 100k page view mark by December but it was broken in October. My Little World also reached 100 followers and broke the 10,000 page views in October. Allot of thanks goes out to Chuckaroobob and his efforts to keep the blog full of original content. He also has the honor of the most viewed post of the year with his Winston-Salem Airshow 2013 part one. It was far and away the most viewed post of the year and is the third most viewed post since I started keeping track back in 2007. We had 176 posts for the 2013 up 29 posts from 2012's 147. 2013 is also the sixth year for MLWoD. I hope to keep it going for many more.

My gaming for the year mostly consisted of Warhammer 40k. I played more 40k than anything else. Participating in a 40k league and playing in a tournament at Gaming Underground made this a year of 40k. Next most played game is Warhammer Fantasy battle. I participated in a informal map campaign early in the year with my Ogre Kingdom army and picked a couple more games late in the year with my Beastmen army. Flames of War comes in next with several games mostly with the Catawba gamers at Parker Banner Kent and Wayne in Cornelius. Last would be the X-Wing miniature game. Since the young master was gifted several ships at Christmas this year I foresee more X-Wing play on the blog.

I finished painting only 42 miniatures for the year. The majority were models for my Fantasy Battle Vampire Counts army, including some ghouls I finished for the Zomtober painting challenge. Although I didn't complete painting on many models I worked on many projects. Starting with the warhammer Fantasy armies I worked on Ghouls, Skeletons, a Blood Dragon Vampire, Terrorgheist, Grave Guard and Skeleton archers for the Vampire counts. I worked on a variety of models for my Ogre Kingdoms including some Empire Flagellants in stocks and a Celtos Chariot to use for the Ogre baggage train.  I picked up some oop Citadel Beastmen and have lately started back on some chariots and Gors for the Beastmen Fantasy army. I built an oop Orc Wyvren and an oop High Elf Dragon to use as Heldrakes for my 40k Chaos marines and started building a chassis for my oop Skaven Warp Lightning cannon. For warhammer 40k I worked on the Plague Marines, Iron Warriors, World Eaters, Eldar and Imperial Guard. I picked up a bunch of Tau Kroot but they a slated to be used as Parrotmen from Venus in some future Victorian Science Fiction gaming. I worked on my Tilean Mordhein warband but didn't end up playing any games. Similarly I worked on some Warmachine Cygnar Warjacks but again didn't end up playing any Warmachine. I finally finished assembling the Tin Man Horde (not Tharks) Warriors and now just need to paint them. I have the quantum Gothic Communication Dish almost finished maybe this year it will see the table. I am still working on a barbarian band for Get The Girl, Kill The baddies. Last we come to the various Historical projects. I working on adding more infantry to my 15mm early war soviets for Flames of War. I am assembling Soviets in 28mm to fight early war games in Disposable Heroes. I have to finish the Cretan archers I made from Wargames factory Numidians as a start for my Achaemenid Persian ancients army and finally to get the 1/900 scale Napoleonic ship finished for some Heart of Oak naval action.

What to expect in the New Year. Who Knows? At the moment I am working on my Fantasy Beastmen to possibly play in the Fantasy league at Gaming Underground. Another goal is to field a 10,000 point Vampire count army for 8th edition. I have 10k points but not the 2500 points of core models. Once I finish building the latest Skeleton acquisitions I will be very close to the 2500 point mark. I was going to go the no proxy route but if I do proxy in my chaos war hounds for dire wolves I may already have enough models to field the 10k. Will I win,  who knows but it is going to be neat to have 10k of Vampire on the table. Last is the 28mm Early war Soviets. I have all the models for a basic Soviet platoon I just need to finish building them and possibly add a couple Maxim machine guns to round the force out for some Disposable Heroes action.

If you are still reading, then sorry for the wall of text. More interesting post coming soon and thanks for looking.

ColKG

January First Disposable Heroes AAR

Hi Kids,  We figured we'd get the new year started with a bang!  Although it was a fly-by-night last minute scramble, we somehow managed to round up a fistful of gamers, a pile of figs, and a location all within 12 hours.  Even had half a tank of gas, some cigarettes, and dark glasses, too.  Anyway, I'm hopeful that 2014 will have a few more games than 2013.  We picked a scenario from a Skirmish Elite book and got right to it.  The figs are all over; Bolt Action, Company B, Westwind, Battlefront, even Walmart for the Marder.  All 25mm of course: The One True Scale!

 Turn one, the Huns move onto the battlefield, the Americans are in the buildings and behind the hedgerows.  Hedgerows are not my favorite terrain, as the defenders get those huge -4 die modifiers.  To win the game the Huns have to exit two armored vehicles off the US edge.

 In a fit of tactical finesse, the Hun vehicles line up to go straight down the main drag.  It's the only way they can get past the hedgerows, so its not exactly unexpected by the US players.  Could be trouble...

 And on cue, the first turn random US reinforcements arrive at the end of the road... a Sherman tank and some infantry.  Yeah, things just got a lot tougher.  Naturally, the river can only be crossed at the bridge.  Anybody got a Stuka handy?

 After receiving two track hits, the Sherman finds the range to the Marder and kills the entire crew.

 Another Sherman shows up!  The Pz4H decides to stick it's neck out to get a line of sight down the road while a halftrack sneaks up on the first building to unload the infantry.  Other forces swing out to the left to exchange fire with more US infantry.

 Score!  The second Sherman brews up, the Pz4H closes the distance on the original Sherman.    The infantry has taken the first building, and the Kubelwagon races to hide behind the second building.  At this point one US player takes the liberty of repositioning it so he can have a line of sight to the vehicle.  Not really sure how that can be justified.....  but the Kubelwagon and all its passengers are then summarily shot dead.

 The Pz4H takes a lot of hits, few penetrate.  The Sherman seems to have enormous magnets attached to the tracks, as it is immobilized a 3rd and 4th time.

 Most of the left flank US infantry are crushed, a halftrack leads the charge!

 The Yanks get lucky as the Pz4H finally takes a hit that penetrates and destroys it.

 The Luckiest SOB on the planet, only a single crewman survives in the Sherman!  Not really sure why every single hit (of which there were about 6) went into the tracks... oh wait, I know. It's the Chuckster's standard dice curse!  Nothing special there....

At the end o' the game, the few surviving US infantry hunker down behind the final hedgerow and the Sherman stands tough on the road.  With nothing to take out the tank, the game is declared a US victory!  Arg!  There is much gnashing of teeth and grumbling on the Hun side of the table!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2013 Chuckster in review

Hi Kids,
Well, its a whole new honkin' year, let's see about the ole lead mountain progress report.  A couple years ago I took the TMP "Paint-More-Than-You-Buy"  Pledge  to try to get some kinda control over just how much lead I was accumulating, and keeping track of it has been kinda fun.  Some years I've painted over 1000 figs, but I usually end up buying more than I paint.  This year I got so disgusted with the state of the Basement of Heaped Miniatures that I decided to sell off some of the bottom shelf projects.  This year I took a lot of stuff to the HMGS flea markets and sold some other stuff on ebay, and I would've been in the black except for losing control the last day of Fall In, where I decided to go ahead and pick up enough 25mm Russians to do some Barbarosa action.  And deciding I would never ever get around to painting my 25mm Carthagians and 15mm FOW Italians made a huge difference. 

Anyway, my totals for the year:

Painted: 206
Bought: 254
Sold: 1183

Total change in Lead Mountain: -1135

This is the largest reduction ever, so I actually did great for the year!

 

Just to show you what I'm up against, here's a picture of my permanently setup painting area in one corner of the Basement.  Keen observers will note there is actually no horizontal surface on which to paint.  I have taken to using those black jewelry display boxes to handle the figs as they go through the process, making my life just a tiny bit easier, as you can keep the relevant colors on the tray also. And I highly recommend a 500watt halogen lamp.  Damn thing'll keep you warm, too!