La Gleize 2019 - What a Tanker

So, after our short break in the Ardennes, it was back to Hitchin on a Thursday night. 

Elsewhere in the club, there was a 6mm Jacobite rebellion game, using a adapted FK&P rules, looking very nice. Fred, Chris and Malcolm also played a sci-fi game using FUBAR. It looked nice but seemed slow. As we were close to finishing Chris told me that they had just finished turn 4!

Inspired by our recent travels, Phil put on a WAT game set in La Gleize, December 1944. I supplied my pristine “Frostgrave Autumn” mat to give the appropriate wintry feel, which almost immediately Tony decided to add a coffee stain to!

 So to the game. A Panther and King Tiger faced 4 Shermans, an Achilles and a Stuart. My Panther started in the centre of La Gleize and Greg’s King Tiger on the outskirts.

Phil’s initial foray saw his Recce Stuart skirt round the village but foolishly gave my Panther a flank shot. One dead Stuart. Not really worth a kill ring. Tony hid behind a wood much to Greg’s frustration. Dave then attempted to attack with his two 76mm armed US Shermans, but another well-placed Panther flank shot saw another “Ronson”.

Tony still cowered behind the wood but now Greg was coming to get him... With the Yanks taking a beating Phil decided they needed the Achilles help and he raced towards the village covered from the King Tiger by a low hill. A cunning move.

“Bang”.....the Panther hit Dave’s 2nd Yank M4 causing heavy damage. However, now we had a Panther vs the nippy Achilles in an urban environment; this could be hard!

Greg's lumbering King Tiger now attacked Tony's two Sherman's hiding behind the wood. One dead Sherman and one running for dear life.

 Finally, the Achilles got behind the Panther and dispatched it with a shot in the rear. Posthumous Iron Cross for Simon! Tony and Phil then decided to take on the remaining big cat head on. Miraculously Greg rolled exactly what was needed for two shots. Result a dead Sherman and a dead Achilles! All that was left was Dave’s crippled M4 to take on the King Tiger. With these odds the Allies....or is that Ally singular.... it withdrew, allowing Peiper to escape. A most enjoyable evening’s entertainment.

Swamp Fox - Game 2

This is the second scenario from the Too Fat Lardies Swamp Fox supplement and again we have Swamp Fox Buchanan pitted against Major May. In this scenario the table is covered in large areas of swamp with a river running through it and a road crossing it.

The scenario is where the Rebels are attempting to disrupt a Crown force column. Thus the Crown forces deployed in a column on the road and attempted to exit at least half their force off of the far edge of the table.

Two groups of Rebel militia quickly deployed and started harassing the tail end of the column

The rear group of Loyalist militia turned and returned fire, acting as a rearguard whilst the rest of the column headed for safety.

Numbers soon began the tell and the rearguard were driven off. Meanwhile the rest of the column had used the time wisely and had managed to reach the ford over the river.

However out of the swamp came Swampy Buchanan to try and out flank them. However the dice gods were not with Swampy this time and even with a bonus move his forces floundered in the mud.

The British regulars deployed into line and prepared to pour fire into Swampy's troops.

The Crown forces closed in whilst Swampy failed to get his forces into any sort of order with only a single group able to return fire.

Things were not looking good for Swampy with poor dice rolling not helping and the militia were taking too long to advance up the road.

Soon the Rebels were down to just one group and this wasn't able to slow up the Crown forces. So the Crown forces were easily able to get most of their forces off the table edge and win the game.

Another good game of Sharp Practice which Looked as if it would be all over quite early but the moveable deployment point used to get ahead of the Crown forces brought the initiative back to the Rebels. Had it not been for some truly atrocious movement dice it could have had a completely different outcome.

Trees from China

I had purchased some trees and when they arrived I was a little disappointed in that the foliage was quite brittle and didn’t appear to be very well attached; quite a lot had fallen off in the post. However, Tony had bought some similar trees although of a different species and these appeared in the recent Swamp Fox game. They looked superb so I had to know how he had transformed them. This is what he did:

• Make bases i.e. layers of MDF and use a hole cutter on a drill. Or order some pre-cut MDF circles
• Drill hole in middle of base and glue tree in with glue gun
• I also put some dabs of plaster on the base and used my (wet) fingers to make up some roots.
• Change the colour of the trees
• Put down some baking paper on the work top you are using.
• Get a large old style ice cream container (rectangular type).
• Mix up PVA glue, forest green paint and water. A fair amount is needed, more than half but less than 3/4’s of the ice cream container
• Got the forest green paint from “The Range” and used most of a tube.
• Mix the PVA and Paint first and then add the water.
• Dip the top of the tree.
• Tip the container at an angle and spin the rest of the foliage (note you do not need to full cover all of the foliage about 3/4 or 5/6th is good.
• Hold it above the container to let a bit of the mixture to drain
• Put on the baking paper and let dry takes about 1-2 days
• Paint the root structure in a suitable structure and the accessible bit of the trunk and dry brush
• Flock
• Sit back and enjoy your new forest

So I first drilled holes in some 25mm discs from Warbases and glued the trees in place; adding a metal washer to the base to give it some weight to help prevent the trees easily toppling over.
A number of the trees were looking a bit bare in places due to some of the foliage having fallen off so I glued the loose foliage back into place using PVA and left to dry.

Tree with missing foliage

Tree with foliage replaced

Next I mixed up a batch of green paint, PVA and water as per Tony’s instructions, using paint I had from a previous project. The green was a bit too bright so I added brown. 

Instead of dipping the trees as per Tony's method I used a large brush and applied the paint to all the trees and left to dry for a couple of days.
Then it was just a matter of adding filler to the tree bases, painting, dry brushing and adding flock.