Tuesday, 15 April 2025

Some New Arrivals

 Fresh from Adam at Adrahlabs in Australia, a small addition to the 10mm EIR collection - possibly my last Romans? I have not quite decided. I may also consider other ancient armies from the Cromarty Forge range - they have Greeks, Carthagians, Republican Romans, Gauls and Germans, to name a few - and all look just as nice as the figures below.


The small package of excitement

Two units of legionaries in Testudo formation



Two additional units of auxiliary infantry. Annoyingly, the one on the right has a broken off standard - but it's in the plastic bag the figures were all packed in, so shouldn't be too hard to super glue back into place.



Six "Scorpion" bolt throwers



Two Onagers


Finally, we had a night away this past Saturday, staying in a very nice hotel, the Sebel, in central Auckland


Location of the hotel


Arrow indicates approximate position of our suite


Our "balcony"!


View of Viaduct Harbour from said balcony


The expansive balcony from our room


A very relaxing weekend - headed into Auckland around 3pm on the Saturday, checked in, had a drink, met friends at "White and Wongs" Asian fusion restaurant about a three-minute walk away for dinner, returned to the room around 930pm, I had a bath (!) - not something we do often nowadays, as showers are the common means of washing - retired to bed around 1030 and woke up in pitch darkness (thanks to very efficient curtains) at around 845am Sunday! Popped next door to "Giraffe" cafe for a leisurely breakfast then headed home around 11am. I probably could have bought a small army for what the one night away cost, but man cannot live by war alone, can he?!

Sunday, 13 April 2025

Mid-week Solo - Back to Barbarossa

 This game took place a few days ago but I am only now getting around to posting a report. 


Initial layout, the Germans will enter from the bottom table edge


The Germans had a Stuka strike, an artillery strike and reinforcement by a PzKfw III, the Russians only had a couple of "partisan assassins" (mainly so I could use a couple of the female Pulp figures that have been sitting on my painting desk for 12-18 months!)


Turn two saw a Russian card turned and one infantry unit appear randomly by dice roll right next to the advancing Wehrmacht!


The leading carrier continued to advance, whilst the second one dismounted its infantry to confront the ambush.


On turn four, the second Russian unit appeared, directly ahead of the leading Germans - a well-executed ambush, even if it was all just a random fluke of dice rolling!


The MG34 gunner immediately engaged "targets front" 


The Luftwaffe arrived and scored two hits on the enemy, which resulted in the Russians pulling back into the woods, out of sight of the deadly MG


To the rear, the Germans put one hit on the other Russian unit


The leading half-track advanced over the small stream and then dismounted its infantry.


The Russians had managed to rally off a hit and decided to charge forward - but rolled a very low movement score!


The next turn, they got into contact, but neither side could gain an advantage (three or four turns of no hits by either of them!)


An impressive exchange of small arms fire at the original ambush site - unfortunately for the Russians, cover reduced the double 6 to 11, so only one hit was scored.


Meanwhile, at the ford, the evenly balanced melee continued - I think I rolled double matching scores like the above several times.


Finally, a decision, the Russians put a hit on the German infantry, and they had to fall back.


The first partisan appeared in just the right place and put TWO more hits on the leading German infantry unit!



Next, the Russian infantry scored a killer hit on the SdKfz 251 with a grenade or Molotov cocktail!


And by great good fortune, the second partisan appeared from the same building, and put the Wehrmacht unit up to four hits!



The Germans failed to rally and fell back 10cm (dice roll). Meanwhile, the other Russian unit was falling back to consolidate the defence (to the right above)


The retiring Germans again failed both rally attempts (one in the rally phase at the start of the turn and again in the movement phase) and were within spitting distance of exiting the table. The other unit advanced warily up the flank, whilst their carrier rolled forward to add the support of its MG34.


Buoyed by their success thus far, both Russian units now rallied off all the hits they had been carrying


Another turn, another failed rally, and the retreating German unit left the table. The Germans fired at the Russians to their front but failed to score any hits.


FINALLY, the PzKfw III arrived, but it was too late, with the game scheduled for 26 turns (the Russians had 12, the Germans 14.


The tank put one hit on the Russians across the river in each of the last two turns of the game, but it wasn't enough to change the outcome. The Russians had successfully defended their village, and the Germans would have to commit more resources to dislodging them.


A few eye candy shots to finish off with.



Finally, I have ordered up some more Ostfront reading courtesy of Auckland Public Library service - I am currently halfway through "A Writer at War".



Th...th..th....th...tahts all folks! Thanks for visiting and special thanks for all comments!

Monday, 7 April 2025

Fresh From The Painting Desk

 So yes, I alluded to something other than the subject of this post appearing next, and to be fair, something quite different was ahead in the painting queue, but WWII stuff is so quick and easy to do, this one surged ahead and beat the opposition to the finish line!

The 85 mm air defense gun M1939 (52-K) (Russian: 85-мм зенитная пушка обр. 1939 г. (52-К)) was an 85 mm (3.3 in) Soviet anti-aircraft gun, developed under guidance of leading Soviet designers M. N. Loginov and G. D. Dorokhin. This gun was successfully used throughout the Second World War against high level bombers and other high- and medium-altitude targets. In emergencies they were also utilized as powerful anti-tank weapons. The barrel of the 52-K was the basis for the family of 85-mm Soviet tank guns. After the war some 52-Ks were refitted for peaceful purposes as anti-avalanche guns in mountainous terrain.

Adopted in 1939, the 85-mm M1939, like its German counterpart the 88-mm Flak 18/36/37, was meant for air defense. Like many anti-aircraft (AA) guns of the era it was also provided with anti-tank ammunition in the event a tank should appear.


I am not sure why the model came with the barrel resting on the support mounting - I would assume that was normally lowered before the gun was fired and the image on the web site has it modelled in the lowered position, but as it came this way, I just left it as is - if I attempted to alter it, I am sure I would just break the model!


I notice the two standing crew members need the soles of their boots tidying up, as they were attached to a base with PVA for painting, and some of the PVA has remained in place.


A close up of each of the crew members









A few images/videos of what we got up to over the weekend


On Saturday, we went to see our son Michael playing rugby for the first time since he was about 15 (us watching, not him playing!). That is him at the back, in the half back position:

The key player at the scrum is the scrum-half or half-back. This player throws the ball into the scrum, moves to the hindmost foot of the scrum, and is usually the player who picks the ball up and passes out to the fly-half who then distributes the ball to the backline.


A try being scored by Michael's team in (Patumahoe)


Thats Michael getting the ball then being tackled - he managed to hold onto the ball and feed it back though! His team won by something like 56 - 27

On Sunday, we took a short walk in a local reserve, and heard some magical birdsong...




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