Wednesday Night Gaming -The nuclear pirates

A quick but original game of Force on Force put on by John Grayson last night ,a group of pirates had captured cargo ship containing nuclear waste and 2 seal teams had to recapture the ship ,a very good game with a very slow SEAL victory  .  The ship was by TT combat and was the centre of attention at the sheffield wargames society even though John had not had time to paint it yet .

The heroic seal teams 

The Blackhawk that would drop the SEALS in and the Viper that would menace the pirates 

The target swarming with maritime bandits 

The guards around the Nuclear waste 

One of the seal teams land on the bridge 

a overhead shot from one of the choppers 

The SEALS storm the Bridge (very slowley as they failed their tests 3 times before going in ) 

The Viper flies low to keep the pirates heads down (actually they all stood up and waved ) 

The Seal team secure the Nuclear Waste 

Wednesday Night Gaming -The Battle of Mirbat

A quick play test last night of our Triples game , Using Force on Force and the scenario (slightly altered ) from Classified both by Ambush Alley Games . It went pretty well I played the insurgents and John the SAS ,after turn 1 my dice rolls went down hill and I had lost convincingly by turn 5 . We are tweaking a couple of bits and will do another couple of test games before Triples .

The set up pre game

The insurgents start moving up the Wadi and down from the hills

The famous 25pdr 

the Bat House

A strike Master pays a visit 

a victory fly past 

Anzacs in Vietnam .

My big project for 2016 will be Vietnam in 20mm ,I have chosen to do the Australian and NewZealand forces rather than the usual American ones that grace so many war games tables . The Anzac contribution to the war in Vietnam was no where near as big as the American presence but is recognised as being more succesful , The Aussies at first only sent advisors but were soon committed fully and even introduced national service to bolster the numbers they could commit .The U.S at first used the Aussies in joint operations with its own forces but the Australian command pressed for its own task Force as it realised the American objective of large battle ,all out war was not the way to go. They had learned in Malaya with the British that the best way to deal with this type of war was to seperate the population from the enemy and deal with the enemy with patrols and ambushes .The hearts and minds war used by the Aussies was well recieved by the civilians and they soon became hated by the VC and NVA forces they came up against .The Aussie's were soon backed up by the SAS and the New Zealand Kiwis as well .

o 59,000 Australians served in Vietnam
o A total of 508 were killed in Vietnam
o A total of 3,100 were wounded in Vietnam
o 804,000 Australian males registered for National Service 
o 63,000 Australians were conscripted into National Service
o 18,000 National Servicemen served in Vietnam
 200 were killed
 1,279 were 
wounded
o Peak Australian troop deployment in Vietnam was 7,672 

New Zealand Defence Force in Vietnam o 3,500 served in Vietnam
o 37 were killed in Vietnam
o 187 were wounded in Vietnam
o Peak NZ troop deployment in Vietnam was 552

Over 100 medals for Gallantry were awarded including 4 Victoria Crosses .

THE PROJECT 
I am going to base the first part of the project on the scenario Binh Ba Market place in the Force on Force book Ambush Vallety from ambush alley games,  The scenarion is based on events on the 7th/8th june 1969 when Australian forces engaged VC and NVA forces in the village of Binh BA , this was an unusual battle in this stage of the war as it involved fierce hand to hand combat and house to house fighting .

Troops and AFV's advance on Binh Ba

Step 1 will be the Australian forces which will be

Platoon HQ = Officer , NCO, RTO, Runner and Medic

3 x Rifle Sections each of :

  

Element 1= Leader , scout,MG team ,rifleman

Element 2= Leader ,Scout, 3xRiflemen

4 x CenturionMkV tanks

4 X M113 Cadillac cage turret

Then I will concentrate on the NVA /VC forces and then the Village its self , when all this is done I will expand the Australian forces to company size for a possible Long Tan Scenario .

7TV 2nd Edition

I have always been a big fan of 7TV the game set in the world of 1960's & 70's television and films and have most of the original books and card sets ,the only draw back with the system to me was the cast building which was a long process.Crooked Dice have now updated it and the casts are easier to choose as they all come on top quality pre printed cards ,many other changes have taken place as well the counters and templates are now perspex and it all comes in a sturdy box with the rule book split into 2 seperate books .Crooked Dice have also already released some scenario books based on star wars ,scooby doc and Ghost Busters in PDF form and the best bit is the Star wars and Scooby doo are free. Below are pics of the box an contents and the figures from the pre order Army set . I will be playing game in acouple of weeks so will do a better review and AAR then .

The Box which is very strong so will last 

the cards -almost 150 profile cards , 20 gadet cards and 45 count down cards

blast template ,metal maguffin token and loads of other counters 

the 2 books 

both books are laid out well and contain lots of colour examples

also in the box is this discount token 

not part of the box sets but one of the pre order starter sets 

Wednesday night gaming -Funny Little Warships

Had the pleasure to take part in Tim and Jerry's game last night at Sheffield wargames Society , the Funny Little Warships game ,the scenario was set in the infamous herring war of 1909 ,lots of fun as usual with the shooting taking place off table by firing matchsticks at paper cut outs ,excellent fun and I am sure a much better description will appear on Tim's blog soon .
http://megablitzandmore.blogspot.co.uk

My battle ship on turn 1

my battle ship on turn 4 

aim ..fire 

its all very intense stuff 

Release the Samurai -AW MIniatures Kickstarter

Andrew at AW Miniatures ,one of our British Legion Sponsors has a kickstarter campaign for his new range of Samurai ,really nice figures with items that are hard to find any where else
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1615843621/release-the-samurai?ref=nav_search

If you are not into Samurai then Andrew does some nice Zulu war and French Indian war stuff on his normal site as well .