My 2020 in Wargaming

 

Well, that was a strange year. I actually started the year being off work and ill due to stress. It happened because I had a very poor team leader, and fortunately that meant I was able to get a reasonable resignation settlement, so I could resign immediately but still get paid for 5 more months.

When I got sick with stress in december, my doctor told me to focus on the things that made me happy. In December I decided to focus on my family in time of Christmas. After New Year I started thinking about my hobby. Because of the problems I had had at work I hadn’t been playing or working with miniatures for over a year. I had actually somewhat given up on it. But now times had changed and I felt drawn to the hobby again.

Virtual game of Black Powder ACW

I reached out to old playing friends and began to slowly bring it all back to life again. First step was buying Blood Bowl and beginning to play a weekly game against my brother.

And so it begins...

During the spring I met some new local players that meant I started looking at playing Warhammer 40.000, which I had not played for over 20 years. I have always loved the 40K universe, and had been regularly playing Epic Armageddon, but I had stayed clear of Warhammer 40.000 because I did not like the style of the game, and because I did not like to paint 28mm models. Then I discovered GWs new line of contrast paints, and after having painted a Blood Bowl team I realised that this was great for my simple painting “style”.

I still didn’t like the style of Warhammer 40.000 because I think it looks stupid and unrealistic with too many models on the board, so I went for smaller and more skirmish like games. This, naturally, also had the advantage of not needing to paint too many figures.

Starting small!?!

Around summer the new local players I had met mentioned that they also played GWs Middle-Earth. I had tried this shortly when it was called Lord of the Rings SBG and had amassed a large collection of mostly plastic models when I tried getting into War of the Ring. So I was quickly ready to jump into that game and bought the rules and army books. So that was the game I played mostly during the summer months.

Imrahil facing off against Saruman

By autumn things changed a bit. Firstly Covid-19 did slow things down a bit, and by October I had also started in a new job which also diverted some of my time and attention. Nevertheless, I still felt good about the hobby. My oldest gaming friend, Steffen, and I was talking about playing Chain of Command again, so I was preparing to paint more miniatures to those armies. Unfortunately, Steffen doesn’t live so close to me, so we don’t get to play as often as we would like, but when we do, we often get a full day’s worth of playing. And when we don’t play we often talk about projects, games, miniatures, history and all other hobby related things, which is actually very dangerous as we are very prone to starting new projects. This year we have had 3 playing days, where we have played SAGA, War of the Ring, Chain of Command (including starting a campaign) and What a Tanker.

Not painted, but a fun War of the Ring game nonetheless

So all in all it has been a good year in gaming. I have played a fair number of games, although I always dream of more. I have played a variety of different game systems, although again I always dream of more. I have probably painted more than I ever have before in one year. My collection of miniatures and books have grown, but I have also managed to sell off things I didn’t need.

Command & Colors: Napoleonics in solo mode

I’m looking forward to 2021 where hopefully Covid-19 will no longer impact our lives and open up for more gaming. I have plenty of projects, both ongoing and new, I'm eager to get into. I will not make any plans for projects I need to finish. Instead I will allow myself to work on what I find interesting, even if that means I jump from project to project. I will of course endeavour to try and finish projects but we’ll see how it all goes.

Epic Armageddon: Eldar vs. Orcs

My 2020 painting year

 

As I have mentioned several times on the blog, painting is not my strong side. For several years, particularly when I mostly played Warhammer Fantasy Battle, my group and I would often play with unpainted miniatures. However, the last few years I have tried to focus more on painting since it just is more satisfying playing with painted miniatures and on nice terrain.

My style of painting has always been very simple, and it is even more evident when I paint the smaller scales of 6mm, 10mm and 15mm. Basically I just spray a dominant base colour, do a few details, then a wash and finally tufts and flock on the bases. It works perfect for me, just don’t look too close.

Human Blood Bowl team

With the coming of GWs contrast paints I suddenly even found it easier to paint 28mm. It is still as simplistic as with the smaller scales, and you should not look too close, but very fine tabletop standard for my part. And most important of all it actually makes me paint.

Here is my painting statistics for 2020:

28mm: 164

Infantry: 134

Cavalry: 13

Large Inf.: 10

Monsters/Walkers: 6

Vehicles: 1

Undead Blood Bowl team: 14 minis (2 Mummies, 2 Wights, 2 Ghouls, 4 Zombies, 4 Skeletons)

Humans Blood Bowl team: 13 minis (2 Throwers, 2 Catchers, 2 Blitzers, 6 Linemen, 1 Ogre)

Chaos Blood Bowl team: 13 minis (1 Minotaur, 4 Chaos Blockers, 8 Beastmen)

Eldar 40K: 5 Wraithguards, 1 War Walker, 1 Wraithlord, 2 Farseers, 5 Dark Reapers (inkl. Exarch), 2 Warlocks, 5 Dire Avengers (inkl. Exarch), 10 Guardians + heavy weapon

Tyranid 40K:  16 Genestealers, 12 Termagants, 1 Broodlord, 12 Hormagaunts 10 Gargoyles, 1 Trygon, 2 Carnifex, 1 Hive Tyrant

Chaos 40K: 2 Obliterators, 1 Greater Possessed, 1 Champion

Adeptus Mechanicus 40K: 5 Skitarii Vanguards, 5 Skitarii Rangers, Tech-Priest Dominus, Onager Dunecrawler

SAGA Normans: 13 Cavalry, 8 Crossbowmen

15mm: 76

Infantry: 59

Vehicles/Tanks: 13

Guns: 4

WW2 late war Germans: 17 LMG crew, 19 riflemen, 2 sniper crew, 4 Panzerschreck crew, 8 leaders, 9 Engineers, 3 Sd Kfz 221, 3 Sd Kfz 222, 3 Pak 38, 1 Pak 40, 1 7.5cm IG.18 infantry gun, 4 Schwimmwagens, 3 Panzer IV H

6mm Sci-fi: 32

Infantry stands: 4

Vehicles: 23

War Engines: 5

Imperial Guard Epic: 3 Stormblades, 2 Stormhammers, 6 Basilisks, 3 Medusas, 3 Salamanders, 3 Salamander Command vehicles

Eldar: 5 Falcons, 3 Night Spinners, 2 Dire Avengers, 2 Howling Banshees

6mm Historical: 13 bases

Infantry baser: 9

Cavalry baser: 4

Pontic: 9 bases Pikemen (144 figs), 2 bases Cataphracts (18 figs), 2 bases Horse Archers (9 figs)

 

Other: 8

Objectives: 8 Tyranid infestation nodes/objectives

 

It is certainly one of the most productive painting years of my gaming life, if not the most. Now even as impressive as that is (for me) there is one important disclaimer. Most of the miniatures I painted this year are purchased this year. So my unpainted pile (of shame) has not fallen at all, since I have also purchased several miniatures that have not reached the painting station yet. Still, it is definitely on the right path. It should also be noted that I have bought several already painted figures from various Facebook groups so my painted collection is also growing in that way.

Tau Epic Armageddon army for a games day in July

I will start off 2021 with a sort of painting challenge together with my regular gaming friend, Steffen. Inspired by a video about painting 15 minutes a day from the Youtube channel Storm of Steel Wargaming, we have set a goal of trying to paint at least 15 minutes every day in January. Both Steffen and I have large unpainted collections so we are always trying to find ways to motivate us to paint. We are both very excited to see how much we will paint in January.

Painted - Chaos Blood Bowl team

 The very last thing I have painted in 2020 is a Chaos Blood Bowl team. I was eager to get them done to finish of a rather good painting year (probably the best thing to be said about 2020).

I have used my standard simple painting style with a mix of GW contrast paints and Copper metallic for the armour. I probably should have done more with bases, but I got a bit lazy. The most important thing, however, is that they are painted and ready for a game.

8 Beastmen

4 Chaos Blockers

The Minotaur

Group photos

Black Friday (part one)

For the first time ever I had some extra funds to use for my hobby as we approached the time of Black Friday. So with the coming Brexit in mind I decided to splash out and make several purchases. So I scoured the webshops to look for interesting offers. 

I decided for a few guidelines to help me focus my purchasing, since I'm generally easily tempted to get into a lot of different things. First of all I needed to be wary of not getting too many new miniatures, since I still have a lot I need to paint. This meant I focused mostly on terrain, books and pre-painted stuff if possible. Secondly I should not start new projects but concentrate on existing ones. And thirdly, due to brexit, I should only look at English webshops. Now, as it were, I did fail on all 3 points, but more on that in part two.

Because of covid-19 and christmas season the items arrived very piecemeal and there is still some stuff I haven't gotten yet. Also some things I have ordered with others, so those items are also missing. But here's a photo of all I have gotten so far.

As can be seen it is quite a diverse collection. The mdf buildings are for my 15mm WW2, so primarily aimed Chain of Command. The desert pillars from Battlefield in Box I got because they were rather cheap. The SAGA box is for a late roman warband, so my Normans have someone to fight against. The LotR LCG boxes I collect whenever I see some good offers and availability. I collect books as much as miniatures so I always purchase those whenever possible. These purchases should demonstrate that I reach wide in my hobby 😀

Game - What a Tanker!

 The same weekend Steffen and I played Chain of Command, we also tried playing What a Tanker!, another Too Fat Lardies ruleset.

What A Tanker! is a WW2 game of tanks, where each player controls one or more tanks. I had gotten the rules just some weeks before, and I really liked them. As with Chain of Command the core mechanic is about using dice to control your army or in this case each tank. It's a nice way to simulate the various crews in a tank.

We played 3 games and unfortunately as with the CoC games I got too caught up to take enough good photos. But here are those I did take.

I played the Russians and Steffen the Germans. In the first game I had a T-34/85 in the lower left corner and a SU-100 in the lower right corner, and Steffen had a Tiger I in the upper left corner and a StuH 42 in the upper right corner.

First turn, my T-34 moved forward and took a shot against the Tiger. Unfortunately I did no damage, and instead the Tiger fired back and destroyed the T-34. Fun game!!

Rest of game the SU-100 tried to kill the StuH 42 before the Tiger outflanked but failed miserably and was eventually destroyed.

In game 2 we tried some earlier tanks, so I fielded a T-34/76 and a KV-1S, while Steffen took a StuG IIIG and a Pz IVH.

This photo is not from the first game, but my T-34 suffered the same fate as the /85 in that game. The T-34/76 was destroyed by the StuG so I was under pressure from the beginning again.

My KV-1S was, however, more resilient and managed to take up the fight against the Germans. After a small duel with the Pz IVH the german tank exploded in a ball of flames.

The 2 remaining tanks now started to circle each other and tried to get a killing shot in. Unfortunately it was the KV-1S who lost that duel, as it had already received some damage in the fight with the Pz IVH.

In the last game we went back to late war again and had 3 tanks each this time. I went back to the T-34/85 and SU-100 and added a ISU-152. Steffen took the Tiger I and StuG IIIG  and added a Panther. Unfortunately I only took a picture of the deployment. Especially unfortunate, as I actually won this game. My SU-100 took out the Panther very fast. The T-34/85 used its better mobility and outflanked and killed the Tiger I and then the StuG IIIG.

What a Tanker! is a very fun game with some great mechanics. It can end up in some unrealistic situations where two tanks are a few metres from each other and can't hit anything. But that does not take the fun away from the game. It is a fast game that can be played in between the somewhat heavier games, like a little fun break. And of course, when do you not want to play with tanks 😀

Reinforcements - 15mm WW2 Russians

 Since I'm not a very prolific painter, I do buy painted miniatures from various sites, most often Facebook, from time to time.

So when someone here in Denmark decided to sell off a large FoW collection, I jumped in and picked a few items to add to my own collection. Primarily I intend to use it for Chain of Command, however I did buy more than one of the models, so I could use it for other rules.

So here is what I bought :)

3 KV-1S

3 SU-76

4 SU-122

These are not painted but I might need some for an upcoming CoC campaign.

4 ZiS-2 guns

3 DShK HMG

20 bases of infantry men and various weapons, incl. molotovs and flamethrower. I intend to take them off their bases and base them individually instead.

Game - Chain of Command - Old Hickory campaign

 This weekend my friend, Steffen, and I started our first Chain of Command Pint Size campaign. We decided to try Old Hickory which is Germans vs. Americans in Normandy in August 1944.

I was the Germans, who are conducting a counter-attack against the American positions commanded by Steffen. We are both rather inexperienced, but we were very much looking forward to try a campaign.

The Germans can attack in various directions/zones and the Americans have to divide their forces between those zones. The Americans only have one platoon + 2 infantry squads from campaign turn 2, a few fixed support choices, most of which are AT guns, and otherwise limited support options. The Germans have 3 platoons and a good  selection of support choices, but gets no reinforcements during the campaign.

We played 4 games over the weekend. Unfortunately I was often too caught up in the game to remember to take pictures, but here are those I did take.

First game I attacked in the red zone with 1st platoon. The wooded area was played as orchards so only 6" visibility through it. I got my jump-off points reasonably well up the table and spread out.

Steffen tried to make a forward defensive line at the hedge line, but that was to prove a minor mistake. His third jump-off point is in the right corner, out of sight in the following picture.

The Germans started their advance through the orchard, while setting up an infantry gun to cover the right flank if I decided to attack there later.

In the center of the American line a 0.3 MMG and a 57mm gun try to hold the Germans back, but are rather unsuccessful.

Now the battle turned tense and I forgot to take pictures. The Germans managed to destroy the 57mm gun and take the hedge line, but the Americans had set up a new firing line further back, and the Germans suffered heavy casualties. I tried to attack on my left flank instead, but Steffen deployed a 3" gun to effectively stop that.

Then the Americans tried a desperate counter-attack but was turned back and ended up retreating from the field.

So the Germans won the first game. They did take some casualties, but all in all I was satisfied with result as the Americans also lost some important support choices.

In the second game I decided to continue my attack in the red zone. This time the battlefield was much more open. Steffen ended up with a defensive line almost at his table edge.

The Germans tried to send some infantry teams forward on both flanks, but some clever deployment of minefields and barbed wire by Steffen meant they had to cross open land and was shot up quite badly. But it also meant that the Germans were able to deploy a lot of LMGs and an infantry gun to fire back. And since the Americans were few in numbers they eventually had to withdraw from the field.

So another German victory, but again with heavy casualties. But I had cleared the red zone which who ease any further attacks on the Americans.

In the third game I moved my attack to the orange zone. This was an even more open battlefield, and the battle evolved almost exactly like the previous one. I advanced with a couple of squads to draw out the Americans, and then put a lot fire into them. Another victory for the Germans.

In the final game of the weekend I decided to press the attack in the orange zone. This time the battlefield was divided in two as a raised causeway ran through the field. It also gave the Americans a natural defensive position at the crossroad.

The Germans move forward to hedgeline to establish a good supporting fire position.

Then I sent out a squad to advance towards the crossroad and draw out the Americans.

Despite some heavy fire the German squad manages to cross over the causeway and threaten the American right flank.

The Germans at the hedgeline fall back as they come under heavy fire from the Americans.

The Americans desperate attempts at stopping the German attack on their right flank ends in failure and after taking severe casualties they retreat from the field.

So once again the Germans were victorious, and for the first time even with very light casualties. It was some very tense and fun games, and at least the first 2-3 games could have gone the other way. It was tough for the Americans to hold their positions with their limited troops.

As noted in the beginning we are both somewhat inexperienced, so we were also learning the tactics as we played, which did not always go as planned. We are halfway through the campaign, and the Germans looks to be in a good position to win, but that will have to wait for another time.

(And apologies for lack of pictures. I will try to do better in the future.)