Ardennes Battlefield Tour

Since getting back from the Ardennes I have been shifting through my pictures and trying to work out how I could share these. Although we were only away a week we covered a lot of ground visiting on some days 4 or 5 different locations. This sounds like a demanding schedule, but it really didn’t feel like that. We both just love military history and wanted to pack in as much as we could.

We tried to mix things up covering actions in 1870, WW1, 1940 and 1944. In fact the Ardennes has even more to offer but we just didn’t have enough time to see everything. However, our main target was to cover as much as we could of the 1944 Ardennes offensive. One challenge with this is the size of the battlefield and the complexity of the actions that took place.

This map covers the rough route, but doesn’t include our first stop at Mons or the trips to Montmédy, La Ferté or the Battlefield at Stonne. It really would be a mammoth task to share all the photos so for those not so interested here are just a couple of the highlights. I have then done a shortish video showing a lot more of the trip for those who are interested.

Dinant where the Ardennes offensive fizzled out and where De Gaulle was injured in WW1

La Roche en Ardennes

A Sherman in La Roche

Tiger II at La Gleize 

Tank traps on the West Wall at Hollerath, Germany

Jack’s Wood in Bastogne location for the 506th Airbourne

Battlefield at Schumanns Eck in Luxemburg 

National Military Museum Diekirch

Montmedy Castle

Ouvrage a La Ferte

Battlefield at Stonne

Floing the scene of the cavalry charge in 1870

Chateau of Sedan

Museum of the ‘Last’ Cartridge Sedan

So that is a quick run through and now for those who are keen a short video of our trip

If you made it this far thank you for your patience. We covered a lot of ground in the trip and should anybody else be thinking of going or just interested I would be happy to share my thoughts.

Thanks of course, more games and figures to come soon Matt

Sixty nine ships of the line ?

Well something completely different. I have been listening to a book on the Napoleonic wars recently and there was a section on the naval aspects and of course Trafalgar. I remembered that languishing for probably 20 years I had some small scale 1:3000 ships. I had managed to paint a few at the time but my techniques especially my ability to paint quickly has improved massively so I dug them out and set to…after a few evening work here they all are. (Technically these are two more army parades !)

The Spanish / French fleet

The British Fleet.

The larger coloured flag denotes the class of the ship. They are a bit rough and ready but given their diminutive scale they are fairly effective. I can now game Trafalgar on a one to one scale ? I just need to find some suitable rules which are simple and elegant….and suggestions or experience would be welcome.

The sun came out yesterday and given the recent weather it was too good an opportunity to miss, so I popped out, sunny spells and breezy on the top of Bowscale Fell.

That’s it me now radio silence for a week as I head to the Ardennes, pictures to follow

Thanks for checking in..Matt

Armies on Parade : French and Tallarn

After tidying up the weekend sci-fi game I spent a few minutes in the dungeon. Firstly getting the whole Tallarn army out so I could calculate how many points I have in total.

The Tallarn all painted at the moment. Like pretty much all my collections my thoughts immediately go to  thoughts about expansion and what else I might add. Ideally I would have another transport or perhaps another tank. I’m also on the look out for some suitable heavier infantry (stop press these may have been sourced from eBay last night)

Secondly in line with the reboxing of the British I purchased some larger boxes for the French to allow them to be stored safer/easier. So as they were being transferred I did a parade for the French as well.

Obviously I’m pretty happy with these chaps so far. 3 or 4 Brigades of infantry. The lead pile contains quite a bit more infantry and the plan will be to paint these as Legere as I don’t have enough of these. Some guard artillery, another unit of chasseurs and another Curassier regiment. I really mustn’t buy anymore French !

That’s it for now, I been busy painting some more Spanish infantry and something completely different, but they are not quite finished yet.

Thanks as always Matt

Alien Artefact found on Tanus IVb

Having painted up the Tallarn force they needed a proper run out………

Tanus IVb

Somewhere in the depths of space a powerful alien artefact has been located. The Emperor has despatched a crack force of Tallarn desert troops to recover the Artefact and ensure it doesn’t fall into the control of chaos. Unfortunately chaos troops have already landed on the planet. The Tallarn force will have to fight their way from the drop zone, locate and capture the entrance to a series of underground tunnels and then retrieve the Artefact. What neither side knows is the planet is infested with an indigenous species which due to the artefact has mutated and multiplied into a powerful, mindless swarm…….on Tanus IVb you will definitely hear people scream 😱

Scenario

The campaign will be fought over three separate but linked battles using Xeno rampant. Each side having 30 point force for each battle. 

Battle 1 Drop Zone Ambush. We randomly rolled to see which force was landing and which in Ambush. As it happened the Tallarn were landing their objective to get off the table. chaos would be deployed in the corners of the 4x4 table. Only when the ambush was deployed would the Tallarn decide which table edge to escape to, which would force chaos to spread out their troops.

Battle 2 Industrial Complex. The winner of the above would choose their deployment edge in the next battle. A cluttered industrial complex in the desert where 6 tunnel entrances have been located they must be captured and explored. A unit would need to take a turn and activate on a 6+ to open the tunnel entrance to capture it.

Battle 3 The Tunnels. The winner above would be able to choose one tunnel entrance in the final scenario but others would be random. No vehicles in the tunnels the artefact in the centre needed to be captured and if possible removed out of the tunnels.

Indigenous Alien species : these were a NPC they would swarm from Alien spawn points on the table. When any unit moved within 6” of such a node a D6 test would be taken

1&2 nothing happens, 3,4&5 Aliens appear at the node but don’t attack, 6 the aliens arrive and immediately attack. The battle one only small aliens, battle two small and medium and battle three the possibility of giant Xeno arriving. In every wild charge phase a test would be taken for any aliens on the table, and they would randomly assault any unit within range. This fight would then be resolved, these alien wild charges would not prevent the active side also then having to carry out wild charges in their phase. In the first two battles the nodes would act as tunnels with multiple alien units potentially spawning. But in the final battle they would only spawn a single unit.

Obviously with three battles there were a lot of events so as usual not a blow by blow account, just a few highlights.

Battle 1 : Dropzone Ambush

The Tallarn force arrive in the centre and have chosen to exit the table from this nearest edge. In this picture the exit looks easy but there is an enemy Tank off to the left !

The Tallarn mainly light infantry, they do have effective Armour piercing weapons but limited body armour. The Walker is really tough

The Walker stumbles forward triggering the first Aliens to arrive

These charge the Walker but bounce off its armour

and now the theme of the first battle…..more aliens arrive this time charging the chaos militia

Having decided the Walker is too tough more Xeno charge some of the Tallarn infantry

‘Chaos’ now began with Xeno spawning and charging everything in sight, we laughed a lot as our troops were cut to pieces. At one point the Chaos forces chose to spawn another Xeno unit realising the Aliens were tougher and more effective at killing the Tallarn !

The Chaos commander looks on and fires long range into the melee

Finally after a lot of dead Tallarn, and quite a lot of chaos troops one unit and the Walker do make it off the table. However this is not enough and chaos have won the first battle.

Battle 2 : Industrial Complex

After the first turn the two forces now charge forward. Chaos choosing to arrive from the far side

More chaos troops thrown into the attack

Both sides much more cautious if the Xeno spawn points after the first battle !

The chaos General controlling form the rear

Inevitably though more Xeno arrive, in the distance Tallarn have some cavalry who rush forward, but this triggers more Xeno who push them back

With both sides claiming two tunnel entrances, the Chaos Walker manages to reach the central tunnel

Lots more laughing as the Xeno again take control and kill both sides

A final twist as a more powerful Xeno life form is released, these are even more brutal than the smaller species ! But the chaos force has won again having the bulk of the tunnel entrances

Battle 3 : The Tunnels

Having won the previous battles chaos choose to access the tunnels from entrance A and B, Tallarn who have to roll randomly will access from D and C. The Xeno nodes will only release a single unit but there is no way to the Artefact without triggering at least some Xeno

The Tallarn advance cautiously down the first tunnel

Hordes of shambling and ‘contagious’ chaos mutants push down one tunnel

The first Xeno released are luckily still the smaller breed

Ooops spoke too soon  !

Slow progress from this end of the tunnels

The chaos troops are tough but slow and also get caught by Xeno 

Form the far end the Tallarn are quietly making progress

With only one node they manage to push the Xeno back

One of the shambling horde are forced back and inadvertently trigger the node at the artefact itself. With trepidation we rolled on the Xeno chart arrghhhh ! A massive giant creature is realeased, very lucky for the Tallarn they are out of range and it instead heads the other way trapping the chaos forces

An opportunity finally opens up

Chaos forces are pinned back in their tunnels unable to kill the armoured Xeno

Even though it brings them into range the Tallarn infantry rush upto the artefact

Their remaining colleagues sacrifice themselves to draw the Xeno away from the centre, they die a horrible lonely death in a dark tunnel on a remote planet….such is life for the foot soldiers of the Empire !

It takes a turn to remove the artefact but they pass the activation, at this point with chaos pinned down the battle was effectively won. The artefact has been secured for the Emperor.

One final shot of the tunnel complex at the end of the battle

Well that was pretty fun, we had a lot of laughs mainly caused by the random nature of the Xeno and our inability to kill them. In hindsight perhaps we would have made the Xeno slightly easier to kill but such is the way of the universe you never know what you may find on remote planets ? All three battles were fun and quite closely contested. The rules worked out quite well and it was great to get the Tallarn out on the table. We are now planning a larger single battle so we can get all the Tallarn on the table in one go.

A bit more painting going on but I am then away to the Ardennes for a week, but hopefully popping into to Partizan on the way back.

Thanks as always KBO

Matt