Sunday 12 May 2013

A Battlegroup Overlord game...and some thoughts

The Young Sarge and I had a game using the new lists in the Battlegroup Overlord book today. I had a U.S. force using the Infantry Division list, and Young Sarge had a German force which was something of a Heer & Fallschirmjaeger Kampfgruppe, but based on the German Infantry division list.
The game sees the Germans trying to hold back the tide of the allies as they close what would become the Falaise gap. The Germans have formed a kampfgruppe from the remains of fallschirmjaeger & heer units. The Germans also start with an 88 already in place as part of this game.
No commentary about the game this time, just a few pictures. We never seem to finish a game to its conclusion, but the Young Sarge did lose half his battle rating points and I lost none, & we decided we'd had enough. The rules aren't playing fast for me, but that's because we don't play much & I don't have other chaps around me who are up with the rule mechanics to make for a faster game- good luck to those gamers in the British Isles who are enjoying a faster style of game. The U.S. forces are from my son's collection apart from the Sherman and a jeep; the Germans are from my collection apart from the Kubelwagen & the 222 armoured car. The cows are objective markers. The Stug blew up very early on due to me drawing out a break down chit which I placed on it.
























Bazooka team takes out 222














It may be some time before I play another wargame as I am knackered at the moment, and it took a lot of energy just to play this one- bloomin' burnout from November 2011 can still bite me in the backside it seems, being in the same job contributes I guess? My old wargaming comrade the "Red Rajah", has also been lacking in energy of late due to health reasons. Perhaps I'll end up as more of a collector and painter than a wargamer? Lack of space, time, and energy are all contributors to this  growing malaise. I really enjoy the creative stuff, but running games and keeping the stuff needed to run such games can be a drain.
I am thinking that WW2 (in 20mm) is far more terrain intensive than other periods I have played, largely because it is such a different type of warfare to the horse & musket & ancients stuff. The earlier periods of warfare needed room to manoeuvre large bodies of men & horses, much more open space was required than the close combat & dense terrain of somewhere like Normandy in 1944. I am running out of room to store hedgerows and buildings in our small abode- good luck to you if you have that kind of space or a club room to store it in. I have a stash of stuff that I will eventually build and paint for WW2, but I haven't the room for any more.

What about Battlegroup Overlord? Nice book, big, shiny, some great pictures, plenty of useful army lists, lots to like. There is a bunch of stuff in it that I won't use, namely the beach landing stuff as I'm more interested in what happened after they got off the beaches - I'd prefer my commandos fighting inland somewhere. I have no plans to invest in the future releases of big supplements from Battlegroup - I imagine Market Garden would be a smaller book, and that would interest me. Keep your eyes out for future releases if you are into different theatres or periods of WW2- Battlegroup has plans for loads more. The mini rule book they released with Overlord is very useful too - still no proper indexes in either of these books, not sure why, most people find an index very useful.

By the way, if anyone would like to pay me to paint miniatures for them, I am open to suggestions....

Cheers & Stay Special,
John (AKA Jacksarge)

17th Century Characters...mostly

 Here are some 17th Century character miniatures I finished recently.  28mm metal, mostly from Wargamer Poland: https://sklep.wargamer.pl/gb...