510 - 6MMRPC 5: Orkses

Who would've thought that Drax would be painting up Orkses, eh?

Well, he is; I am.

I am RIDICULOUSLY busy with my second job at the moment (I'm essentially not blogging for the next two weeks) but - determined as I am to not fluff this second 6MMRPC - I snatched 20 minutes tonight in order to splash a wee bit more paint on Da Masta Cheef's rather characterful orks:

Another poxy late-night mobile phone pic. Mrs Drax has hidden the camera again...

Every little helps, right?

Sorry for the lack of comments on your blogs this fortnight: I will be back - promise!

- Drax.

PS: There's going to be some 40K action this summer. Jus' sayin'...

509 - Bolt Action Battle Report Part 2 - Reflections (+6MMRPC)

Hullo!

Supplemental to my last post [link], here are a few more pics (from my opponent's perspective) and my post-match analysis...such as it is...which are also my first 'post- Bolt action' thoughts.

I shall intersperse the pics - with captions - throughout, for the sake of variety. My notes are transferred verbatim from my 'Seventh Book of Arcane Scribblings' (see here and here):

John's right flank as he assaults, featuring an his sniper (by the building, centre-table); MMG; Divisional AT Gun; Naval Infantry (the 'Black Death', with light bases); T34/85, and some normal infantry on the right).

Feedback Notes: First Bolt Action (28mm) Game, 30/05/15:

Mission: 'Envelopment' - 1000pts - Defending

• Preliminary bombardment is nasty on the receiving end
• 6pdr got in a sneaky wee shot right across the board to hurt the T34 twice!
• My arty bombardment was BRUTAL - pinned 4 units and destroyed MMG
• --> this effectively stalled his attack on my left flank

Facing them, the five rifle-armed Toms holding my left flank. There's an MMG in the window too ;-)

• Remember LOS! Twice my units got in each other's way. 
• Remember 1" firing lanes too...
• Star Player: my PIAT-armed universal carrier, which did a lot, but in particular destroyed his two-man flamethrower team with two 6s followed by two 5s! Yay!
• ALL of my carriers did very well: they pushed up with LMGs blazing very effectively

These chaps lost one man on my right flank.

• Sniper was rubbish, but drew fire well

• OC ran forward and finished off the last man of a squad with his SMG
• One of my half-sections - by mutual agreement - launched an illicit carrier-borne assault over a hedge...and won!
• PIAT team in carrier did get close enough to use it, but fluffed.

The Black Death. Very hard to kill.

• Veteran infantry (like the Navy Boys) are very hard to kill. Very.
• Cromwell positioned itself well, and shot well enough
• MMG team in building did very well
• Don't be absent-minded with dice! - I was TERRIBLE for this: distractedly picking up orders dice left, right and centre.

The carriers bring the fight to the Russian left...

• Light A-T guns are actually a lot more powerful than I realised. This seems a little simple for Late-War, but I guess it makes sense within the straightforward rules mechanic.
• Light mortars are super-good - especially with smoke! 
• Smoke sticks around very well in Bolt Action...

...and to the right,

• In 'reserves' missions, carriers are great to tow-on the 6pdr and lug the MMG into position. I know this, because I also got in two-and-a-half turns of another game in which I was able to do just this.

Verdict?

Awesome opponent; awesome game.

= win.

Cheers!

- Drax.

PS: 6MMRPC: Time is tight, as I knew it would be, but I've started getting some proper paint onto those Orks...Yay!

508 - Belatedly, A First Bolt Action Battle Report

...well, of sorts.

At the end of last month, I finally got to go to Kirton Games (link) and finally got to PLAY my first proper game of Bolt Action! Huzzah!

I cannot for the life of me remember what mission it was, but the central idea was that 1000 points' worth of my British infantry had to defend against an advancing horde of John's Russians: a broadly similar force, in fact - except for my four little universal carrier runarounds.

The Plucky Brits of 4KSLI

My left flank. You can see John's T34 rumbling on. The two UCs on the left soon pushed up.

The centre, with depleted sniper team in the eaves, Arty FOO hiding (job done) and the Lt lurking at the bottom.

Sneaky 6pdr. Sneaky, sneaky 6pdr.

Preliminary bombardments whittled me down a little bit and cost me two men...but honestly, it pretty much all went my way after that point. Maybe it was beginner's luck, but after my ginger arty observer called down an LP-sized stonk of high-explosive, which essentially pinned down those Ruskies charging my left flank beyond usefulness, the Brits had a really steady run of things.

One of my fire teams, on the left flank...

...and one on the right, feeling a little more supported.

Whilst our snipers exchanged comically ineffectual 'BANG!' flags in the centre, my four plucky little carriers essentially surged forward and machine-gunned the will to fight out of the rest of John's line: four lots of six LMG shots against troops trying to advance can make anyone think twice. I was also fortunate in that John's T34 rumbled on straight into the sights of the 6pdr I'd dug-in to some ruins. Ouch.

One of the stars of the show. Seriously.

Long story short, John's attack faltered, then withered. Even my Lt felt the urge to nip out with his Sten gun to polish off the last man of one of his units: a great and successful idea, although he completely forgot to bug-out again whilst light mortar rounds burst around him. He remembered in time.

The OC, leading by example.

"Up and at 'em!"

...and the same on the left. These four surging forward actually looked fairly cinematic...if fairly ill-advised, tactically.

In the end, I only lost four men in total before time and inevitability obliged John to gracefully concede...and one of those bravely gave his life in order to show me how assault works in Bolt Action. It was successful - his fate notwithstanding.

Indicative of John's rolling.

John was a great opponent and a real gent throughout. It was a delight to face off against his Russians, and something new for him too, as he'd never before faced Brits. I'll probably post again with my thoughts on my first game, but for now, suffice it to say that I had a real blast!

More soon,

Cheers,

- Drax.

507 - 6MMRPC 4: Deskspace

Hullo!

I'm conscious that some of my fellow bloggers have been sharing pictures of their painting areas 'cleared for action' with the onset of 6MMRPC...so, er, here's mine:

I don't have a painting area any more. I have my desk, which is supposed to be for me to do all of my planning, marking, domestic paperwork and - as my second, seasonal job - examining. 

Yup.

However...

It's also used by No.1 Daughter as a desk for her wonderful crazy-ass creative writing and drawing and by No.2 Daughter as a novelty, no-fear-of-her-ever-falling-off-here-at-all climbing frame and cat-chasing platform. Mrs. Drax kindly uses it as a repository for all the crap I leave all over the downstairs of the house too, so it's not what you'd call 'ideal' as a painting station.

My core paints, hobby tools and models-in-progress are all kept in the draws down the left column, with the top-most being locked with the sharp stuff in (luckily, both daughters are tremendously good at not opening things they're told not to open - praise the Emperor).

If you're wondering why I suffer this, it boils down to three things: (1) we've become rubbish at keeping a tidier house since having kids, (2) I'm lazy and disorganised, and (3) it is the ONLY space in our tiny cottage that combines a sturdy horizontal plane at the correct height with access to decent lighting. I kid you not.

Against the left wall, in the corner, are stacked some hobby boxes (I'm still astounded that Mrs. Drax lets me do this - in full public view) and you might even see the sturdy cardboard box sent by Da Masta Cheef [link] with his nine orks in it: I've made a slow start on painting them at last, and based my FoW Vickers Platoon, so a little more progress for 6mmrpc week 2.

Yay.

- Drax

506 - 6MMRPC 3: Still Beginning....and Painting Chart

Alright, Dudes.

Here's what my painting chart looks like for Flames of War these days:

I've just noticed that the new Vickers platoon's bases should be medium - not large. D'oh!

At some point over the last few months I bought and built the Vickers MG platoon, which is officially the only unit I was 'missing' from my 11AD force. Since last post, I've made all five of my new Shermans now (the older, finished one is for comparison) - hooray! I actually added some tracks-n-stuff to each glacis too, for once:

...And that's where I am this week!

- Drax.

505 - 6MMRPC 2: It Begins.

Right then. I've started to tackle the plastic pile.

First up? Three of the five Plastic Soldier Company Shermans that I bought so that I can do two very specific things:
1) Replace the three resin US Shermans from the old-style 'Open Fire' starter set so I can repaaint them as the heavily armoured backbone of my nascent Desert Rats force, and
2) Replace one of my two Fireflies in each troop with a normal Sherman, so that I can play an Op Overlord list rather than an Op Market Garden list.

[with apologies for crappy mobile phone pic]

Construction even included a bit of painting, as whilst the tanks were undercoated and green basecoated on the sprues, I still needed to base the tracks black.

So I did. 

Modelling + Painting = 6MMRPC Win.

See you soon,

- D.

504 - 6MMRPC 1: The First Line in the Sand

Hullo All,

Great News!  Look what arrived in the post this week:

Admittedly, this is Da Masta Cheef's photo (my wife has our camera) but they all arrived safe and - as Cheef won my competition to have a unit painted-up by your sometimes-humble author - I look forward to adding them to the 6MMPRC pile...and they're such smashing models that they'll definitely be right near the top!


As I said I would, I've just started my seasonal second job, which means I'll be working many more hours into the evenings than I currently do...but I still propose to engage with the Second Annual 6MMPRC.

Over the next few 6MMPRC I'll explore the 'mountains' I have for various systems (they're not too significant, to be honest) and I shall endeavour to actually start to reduce those mountains - even incrementally - each and every week.

To start with - naturellement - here is the Draxian Painting Chart as it currently stands for my Bolt Action 28mm force:

In case you were wondering, in no way at all was I a tiny wee bit sneaky in purchasing three additional bits to add to the pile on the evening of the 31st May. Nope. That didn't happen at all...and those models are in no way the ones shaded blue, above. Nope.

So that's the first couple of bits on the pile. 

Honestly? After painting ALL of the green BA-28 models in five-and-a-half months since the new year (an absolute all-time, twentymumble-year record for me, incidentally) I shall be turning my attention away from BA at that scale for a bit, so I suspect the first things on my list will be either my 15mm BA models or...maybe those sweet, sweet Orks?

Other posts in the near future include:
Flowers and Welshmen...and why I love 'em 
and
My first Bolt Action game report. 
Yay!

With luck, some hobby time on the morrow.

Keep well,

- Drax.