Battle of Lydden : Operation Sealion and other New Year activity

Plenty of hobby activity here in the Dungeon. First up, and always a good start to the year we resumed the Sealion campaign. Day 2 and the Germans are pushing North out of Dover along the A2, with the white cliffs and stiff resistance the Germans haven’t been able to open the port yet so to open the A2 towards Canterbury a strong force of Fallschirmjager have been collected to push up the road on foot. The Village of Lydden sits where the road cuts through the hills and the British have blocked the road.

Germans approaching from the south looking to open the A2 and link up with forces to the west, we nominally set three objectives, the railway station, and two houses overlooking the road through the village, one central and one to the West.

Both sides had a double move for troops coming in on the first turn, the Germans making the better of this deployment rushing units of paratroopers close to all three objectives. They have some support weapons teams but only very limited armour.

The British aren’t giving up yet and push infantry along the railway line and an AT gun upto the roadblock

At the other end of the village, Fallschirmjager move into the garage, the house over the road from the telephone box is the objective

The centre of the village the objective being the big house.

The battle for the railway station begins early and proves a key focus for both sides. The Germans have some heavy artillery support, to reduce the impact of this we agreed it would only hit on a six. Haha first turn it demolished the British AT gun, lucky for the British the Germans don’t really have any armour !

The British push forward an AT rifle team only to find the paratroopers have 2 flame thrower teams to help clear the village ! toasted Tommies 🔥

The fight for the railway station hots up but some lightheaded Germans choose to charge across the railway line only to be caught in cross fire and wiped out by the British defenders !

Germans reserves move up, whilst the British seek to outflank them with one of their two Vickers Tanks

The Germans have secured the western objective and just need to hold it now 

British infantry advancing through the village

Dash it the British manage to snatch the station when the two leading Fallschirmjager units both fail an activation test in the same turn , the Vickers tank can now be seen burning and the British are almost broken. They have even resorted to deploying the Beaverette ! In the end the station is contested.

At the west of the village the Germans have secured the house by the Junction despite a late attempt by the British navy unit, the other Vickers tank is also now burning.

The ‘big’ house has changes hands a couple of times, especially when the pinned Fallschirmjager unit in the building rolled a FUBAR and fled the village !!!! But in the end the objective is contested with British in the back garden. This gives the Germans a minor victory, with the only clear objective held and more troops left on the table.

Star of the show definitely goes to the German artillery, their 105mm Howitzer which we only allowed to hit on 6’s hit at least 4 if not 5 times during the battle. This caused a huge amount of laughter and fun even form the British commander 😂

I also played a game of CoC down with George, what a beautiful setup but the result was rather lacklustre from the Germans. George has covered the details on his blog so I won’t repeat here, but the scenario from the campaign is a really tough one for the Germans with very little scope for the Germans. We are moving the campaign on rather than slog this one out again and again.

And some painting since Christmas…

My first completed Perry Spanish unit marches into formation, extra Grenadiers as this will represent the 1st Battalion. More to come…..

I also have a desire to ‘complete’ my SYW collection so I worked on the second unit of Austrian Draggons these representing the 1st Regiment.

They only just fit in the Austrian cavalry box though 

Following Jon’s lead the pile of shame, thankfully much smaller…..

Here are the currently unmade 1/48 aircraft I have collected in the Dungeon six in total, I need to make some progress on these I think.

Well that’s it for the update in 2026, I have some thoughts about projects and battles/ campaigns for this year and I’m already on with prepping the Greeks I got at Christmas. More games planned in the next few weeks.

Thanks as always for taking the time to check out the blog 

Matt ❤️

Italy takes to the sky……and more Christmas loot

The over indulgence of Christmas is finally settling down and I can share some more bits from over the festive period….

Firstly and the last item completed before Christmas some Italian airforce a C.R. 42 Falco for the Regia Aeronautica. A 1/48 kit as I prefer the larger models for 28mm gaming. A great model although I’m not really a very skilled model maker. The struts being quite a challenge, I went for an early colour scheme more colourful and ok upto sicily. The camo scheme is a very rough interpretation of an 1940’s scheme if you squint it is ok. Annoyingly the kit from Italiari didn’t come with a pilot , but I found one in another kit I had waiting in the pile. I do have quite a lot of plane kits in the pile ? 

Next up we did manage to play a couple of zombie games over the holiday, the games are fairly simple with the survivors/protagonists hunting for supplies whilst the zombies / walking dead gradually increase in number as the game progresses.

We at least has some fun and laughs, for those interested in computer games I made this model specially to represent a character in our current favourite game, and yes there are wolves in the forest !

Another shot of the same game with the undead horde arriving stage left as the survivors flee for their lives !

A few of the gifts I generously received as presents 

A game I ordered for myself with a view to some ECW campaigning during 2026, I have scanned through and it is more complex than I had anticipated but the map and game kit could be used in a simpler system if required. It does have a specific solo mode so I should persevere and try and get a solo campaign running

My son gave me these for Christmas picked up in a charity shop. The full set of 100 ! A great find and packed full of information and beautiful osprey illustrations.

Now looking forward to 2026 time for a new (extension) project pondering on this as we do, and having enjoyed collecting and painting my Italians I thought I would look for alternative opponents for them. This obviously leads to Greece which I had previously rejected for the Germans as the later Greek campaign was slightly one sided. However, now I have Italians I have plumbed for Greeks in 2026.

I’m sure we all often start with an osprey book …..this is a pretty good introduction

Some great illustrations as above, the Greeks having captured Italian tankettes…👍

Then scanning on the web I found Great Escape games were offering some excellent sale prices on some of their Greek range…job done so I ordered up a mixed starter force. The benefit of the Greco/italian campaigns are they had very limited armour so I don’t really need anymore, I already have the Italian stuff. Mainly infantry for the Greeks but with some older artillery and support. The GEG figures look excellent sculpts very like crusader figures (not at all like their horrible Norwegians!) so that is the first new project for 2026. One of the benefits is I don’t really need any terrain as between Sicily and Norway I can cover most of what I need.

Finally for this last ? Post of 2025 another shortish video really for my benefit to record all the painted stuff I have managed to finish in 2025. Do of course feel free to skip this alternatively enjoy 5 mins of Mozart 🙂

Thanks as always and I will likely see you on the other side of New year 

Matt❤️

Merry Christmas

Happy Christmas to all of my loyal followers Matt ❤️

Almost Christmas post…..and that was 2025

Christmas is nearly upon us, the weather has improved which is good. The children are back making the house feel busy. I am managing some hobby time though between family stuff. A couple of things completed in the last few days.

This slightly silly terrain piece (planes don’t really crash like this !) but I picked up from the bring and buy at battleground. It is a single 3D print which had a small broken piece at the bottom of the box. Not wanting to make it too specific I have given it non-specific markings and will probably add some smoke when it is on the table.

Also from the secondhand haul at battleground these ECW cavalry. Not sure on the make but they are quite old softer metal figures. Possibly Essex ? Anyway the riders are very slightly bulky but the horses match quite well with the others I have.

Here they are on the left, Peter Pig in the middle and Warlord epic on the right. They match surprisingly well , indicating once again that the warlord figures are really closer to 15mm than most people think. There was only one unit and a couple of odd figures in the bag but they make a nice extra unit.

It does give me that age old problem, as when they were placed in the box, there is no more space and I have at least 3 more cavalry units in the pile ! It looks like the ECW collection is going to move into its fifth box.

Finally I had mention some Christmas zombie games, the table has already seen some action, so I thought I would share a couple of photos of the current setup.

All vehicles are charity shop buys and looking for them is quite an addiction.

Are slightly larger battle is planned….

But for now my daughter has enjoyed rolling some dice in the dungeon which will do for me 🙂

And finally for those loyal readers who have made it this far I pulled together a short 3 minute ‘eye candy’ video of the games (most I think) that we have played in the dungeon in 2025. As to be expected no stats from me and certainly no hint of how much I have spent on my hobbies………just in case my dear wife stumbled across my blog by accident.

Have a great Christmas I will return to my Italian airforce work while the kids are out shopping 🎅🏽

Matt❤️

Battle of Edgehill 23rd October 1642

Probably the last big game before Christmas and a run out for the ECW collection. I could also try out the xtra bits I had picked up at Battleground, wound markers, fire counters and camps. Our adaption of the Kings of War rules continues although they don’t need many tweaks really, I just need to firm up on a couple of the cavalry rules.

Anyway I took the majority of our scenario from this book which I had picked up about a year ago secondhand, a very useful starter for both ECW and TYW battles. Interestingly though I found a lot of variation in setups and maps for Edgehill on the web.

Different setups etc. so in the end I simple took the key elements of the majority for our battle

The setup on the table. Kings forces on the right having come down from Edgehill and keen to engage with the Parliamentary (Rebellious) forces. We had a few special rules, the Royalist setup is slightly closer to the European Tercio style, the parliamentary forces have extra shooting ability to reflect the poor provision of weapons at this stage in the Royalist army. We used the ‘fire fire’ figures to represent this effectively giving the parliamentary forces two rounds of first fire, whilst the Royalist didn’t get any. However the Parliamentary morale is already a little shaky especially in Essex’s brigade, and a couple of the cavalry regiments and they start the battle already carrying a couple of wounds. Some debate about the Royalists having some heavy guns at the battle, but as I have them I put them in but we only gave them a limited number of rounds of firing to reduce their impact. The royalist cavalry would be impetuous but most of the time they were looking to charge anyway.

And so to battle….

The King advances his forces mindful that the Rebels have better weapons

Essex keen to utilise his better firing also moves forward to get into range. (You can see the markers in place two for each block)

Rupert of course pushes forward on the right

On the left , as historically the ground is more broken preventing effective charging ? For now

The slow advance of the Pike blocks across the stream, in the early stages the Kings artillery has a good impact upon the Parliamentary infantry

On the right a large cavalry melee kicks off, but with the rules fairly balanced one round of combat is unlikely to be decisive (much improved wound markers on show)

On the left the cavalry stops to fire pistols at each other with some effect, but again Not decisive 

In The middle distance Meldrum’s brigade has crossed the stream and pushes into Wentworth.

After several rounds of fighting some parliamentary cavalry manages to break through threatening the Royalist flank, who quickly form a defensive Hedgehog formation.

Everywhere else Pike blocks are crashing into each other ‘push of Pike’ ensues, but the leading Royalist regiment gets slightly too far ahead and is worryingly outnumbered and hit on the flank !

Gradually the Royalist cavalry is gaining the upper hand but it is taking too long against the stubborn Parliamentary horse, who hold their ground

You can see across the battlefield the majority of troops are now engaged in fierce hand to hand fighting, Royalist initially have the upper hand but then their luck changes and suddenly the Royalist centre starts to break and run !

The royalists start to lose heart and despite both sides still fighting it is a clear Parliamentary victory. The king will withdraw to Oxford rather than stamp out the civil war in 1642 :(

A fine battle which as often is the case could have gone the other way, the leading Royalist blocks just got drawn too far out of position in their haste and lost the support they needed, the tweaks seems to work quite well. The Parliamentary horse was much more stubborn than historically but it’s a game and if the civil war ended here what would I do with all the figures ? I may get a chance to play a smaller battle over Christmas to see if the rules work at a slightly smaller scale, we’ll see.

I also managed to get a game in with Jon over the internet, giving his Zallaqah battle a run out. It took a little bit to remember the rules as I’ve not played one of his excellent hex games for a while. Playing as the  Moors they have a challenge being faced by masses of heavy Christian knights, can they weather the initial charge and then attempt to push back ?

A fine battle but I think I’ll let Jon tell the story :)

Finally as we settle into the holiday season and rubbish on the TV I plan to tempt the Kids (28&30) into the dungeon to play some zombie games, dad gets to be the zombies hoorah !

Some more painting on the cards in the next few days and hoping to do a short summary of 2025 and some fun planning for 2026 as well.

However if blogger fails have a good Christmas or Holiday season if appropriate I will see you soon

Matt 🎅🏽