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 ❤️