Battle of Littlebourne : Operation Sealion

As the title suggests we revisited my Sealion Campaign at the end of last week, the Germans are pushing on Canterbury from the SE, as their armour is focussed on attacking from the SW the Germans have chosen to advance with infantry from the SW looking to capture the Bridge over the Nail Bourne at Littlebourne. The British must try to stop them or if possible blow the bridges to slow the advance ?

The village of Littlebourne sitting on the north side of the Nail Bourne, there are already some Home guard units deployed and an anti aircraft Bofor gun in the village.

The Germans are not hanging about seeking a speedy capture of all theee of the potential crossing points. They have air support as well !

The British regulars move into the village to contest the main bridge 

By some fluke the Germans get an extra bonus activation, they brutally charge forward wiping out the leading Home guard unit and then occupy the pub.

More infantry is running for the farm bridge to the left

The British have limited support but push forward the trusty Beaverette, they are being followed by one of the two British demolition squads who may try to blow the bridges

As the infantry cross the river, the Beaverette gets caught out in the open, the Germans surprise the British  an a shell from the Panzerjager literally blows it to pieces, this has a serious effect on the British morale ! (The Beaverette being the British generals favourite model !)

The German infantry march pass the burning wreck

In the centre the regular Germantown infantry is support by German mountain troops brought forward in trucks. The first wave of German infantry who had captured the pub were wiped out early on.

It’s all about the bridge so a very fierce battle ensues around the bridge with burning vehicles, the building on the left is also burning from heavy mortar fire

The British are pinned down on the left

Everything from both dies is being thrown at the bridge 

From the village side the British are still holding the main road North

The British have a 2LB antitank gun in the orchard but is does little damage

The third and final wave of German push for the bridge objective

And in the end phase of the battle they capture it and just need to hold on now with mortars raining down around them

The village is a scene of devastation with burning vehicles, buildings and craters, but the Germans have captured the bridges intact and can claim a win.the British must pull back, will they attempt to hold Canterbury or must they now pull back further ?

As always a fun game with the Sealion collection. A real tough fight with no quarter given by either side, they was a whole fight to the right which I forgot to photograph. I’m sure we will be returning to Sealion before long we need to complete day two at least !

George has already posted this one but we played another CoC battle to ‘blood’ his American force.

As always a wonderful set up with his extensive WW2 collection.

My German force of Fallschirmjager would be defending. I took a PZIV to add some fun and guessing the Americans would have at least one Sherman.

The Americans advance using cover……..

As always a very tough fight with both sides laying down significant fire power. In the end the Americans get the better of the dice rolling and the German morale starts to fade. A fine battle but the rules always seem to give us a fairly static battle which becomes a fire fest until one side breaks. I feel the rules need some adaption to provide a more engaging battle, they encourage overly cautious play in my view. ‘Realistic’ perhaps but not always much fun.

After the storms and the rain the weather has been kind…….

Cycling in the Westmorland Dales

and walking today out in the sun.

Thanks as always for  checking the blog out, if the AI a come ts start to increase I may need to think about changing the way comments work. We’ll see, I’m finding blogger increasingly annoying with time as I seems to have lost some of the previous control and am unable (my poor IT skills) to fix problems, I don’t have the patience. I’m still struggling to load photos as well. It is just manageable at the moment ?

Back to some painting this evening hopefully finishing some more Spanish Naps.

Matt ❤️

Middle Earth Skirmish

I had a chance this week to entertain an old friend and his son in the dungeon so I rolled out my LoTR collection almost always a favourite with less regular gamers. A simple scenario sees the forces of Mordor fighting Gondor across a river. The armies were equal sized and I allowed the players to set up as they saw fit.

The forces of evil were more spread out while the Gondorians remained mainly focussed at one end of the table, we had agreed that all troops could cross the river at the three fords but only trolls could Wade in other areas.

Some initial flanking movement to right 

One of the enemy trolls repeatedly charged across the river eventually wiping out the Gondorian cavalry

Next the Wrgs were sent over to join the track but were picked off by ranged attacks

After plenty of fun and a battle which swung both ways, the Gondorians are surrounded, but somehow they cling on and eventually with the Black rider killed by Eomer the evil forces are wiped out. A fun battle and both players went away happy 👍

A bit more painting I finished off the last Greek Medium Mortar

A second unit of Highland warriors for the ECW

…and despite some wet and cold weather I managed to get out on my bike

Thanks as always for checking in, two more games planned this week so likely some more posting at the weekend

Matt ❤️

WW2 Greco-Italian war

Those who follow George’s blog will have seen his post of this battle already but so I can remember what I have played I’ll post it too. Postponed slightly I had promised George another run out with my Greek/Italian WW2 stuff. As he had played the Italians last time I wanted to give him a go with the Greeks but to give them a  fighting chance on the attack I needed a couple more units painted up.

I had already purchased these from Great Escape Games. Excellent range of Greeks in 28mm if anybody is interested. These are two regular Infantry units supporting the rest of the Evzone Mountain force. Really hard not to have all the figures look identical, which whilst historically correct is a bit boring so I altered the shade of their uniforms, assuming they were perhaps newly issued ? I also left the grass off their bases to aid identifying them on the tabletop.

Our scenario has a small force of Albanian troops defending an Italian supply base, the Greeks will be seeking to capture the depot and the goodies contained.

Italian reserves start rushing onto the table, the scenario allowed the Greeks deployment on both flanks but  they chose instead a frontal assault !

And here they come ! Support fire from Mortar and Light Mountain Howitzer but they have little immediate effect

The Italians prepare to defend their supplies to the death ! Fortunately (unfortunately) George reminded me that the last time we played I had reduced the Italian leadership so it only seemed fair to do so for this battle 🙁

The Italians only have one tankette and in a rare event this is taken out by a Greek antitank Rifle !

Not surprisingly as the objective for both sides is the depot it becomes the scene for very fierce hand to hand fighting, it changes hand several times during the battle

This is around turns five the Greeks are closing in again but the Italians have numbers

The elite Greek mountain troops are back in control but surrounded

The Greeks throw everything into the final 2 turns. Putting pins on the Italians infantry closing in, with their reduced leadership they fail to obey their officers orders to charge in and the Greeks win the day. A fine battle, Bolt Action Version One as often happens giving a fun and close battle right up to the end.

It was of course fun to get the Greeks on the table again and as I was packing up I thought an army Parade would be nice. Here they are I do have one more mortar nearly finished, Greeks orthodox priests and a mule supply chain to finish things. The force is very workable BA army now with a little variation depending on whether they are attacking or defending. I might try and add an armoured car or a captured Italian tankette sometime, any thoughts on expansion would be welcome ?

Another Scottish regiment has also rolled off the production line this weekend, these a slightly different shade and technically Royalists.

That’s it for now, the weather is diabolical at the moment as storm Boleo rolls through so I won’t be going out. Some more painting and wargame stuff expected this afternoon.

Thanks as always Matt 🍺

Italian wars and some painting

Back from what seems like a whole series of holidays and I be managed a couple of games and some painting. Two Italian Wars games, the first against George which he has blogged up already so just some pictures here to remind me.

A lovely collection on the table as always

A battle that swung both ways , my French cavalry pushed back the Venetian right wing. Then things started to fall apart on my right as the Swiss Mercenaries I had hired started to falter.

In the end though things turned around, some low activation rolling by the Venetians gave the french the advantage who claimed the win just !

Next up a game over with Martin, I had suggested following my holiday we try the battle of Pavia using his 10mm Italian wars collection. He juggled the OB around a bit so we could have a reasonable representation.

Star agency I ended up playing the french again ? On the left.

Italian wars in 10mm

Both sides close, although my right flank holds back to maximise the damage long range shooting has on the advancing pike blocks. The french are outnumbered !

A very close battle, we almost finished then needed to play two extra turns to get a more decisive result. The french heavy cavalry did well but were eventually shot to pieces. My pike blocks were eventually worn down and crushed. The imperial forces did at least lose All their cavalry so I venture that the King was able to escape on this occasion.

Some painting completed in the last couple of days.

These African American Union troops had languished in the painting queue for a while , Perry miniatures with their alternate head swops.

I have also cracked on with some ECW scottish units

In fact two have been completed, hard to spot the differences although as the painter I know they are there 🙂 I have a mind to complete enough to get some of the Scottish battles in the ECW played sometime.

Whilst down in London I was discussing various books with my son who recommended this and hey presto it turned up in the charity shop when I got back to Penrith.

A very busy trip to London, most of which ‘cultural’ rather than hobby stuff. I did visit an excellent art exhibition currently on at the Wallace Museum of Winston Churchills paintings, highly recommended as there is naturally quite a bit of history in evidence in the context of the paintings. Apparently though this is the only painting he completed during WW2 given as a gift to Roosevelt after the Casablanca conference, soft diplomacy at work.

I also popped into the maritime museum.

Have been thinking about this for the future ?

Visited the British library where they have a small exhibition related to the 250 Independence celebrations included this original map of the Yorktown battle

Finally a cannon in Greenwich captured from the Ottomans

Currently no more trips planned away although that may change and we are planning for next year. Hopefully some action in the dungeon this week and some more painting.

Many thanks as always

Matt ❤️