March Objective Achieved!

My plan for March was to get a small WW2 skirmish force painted. I have painted a platoon of late-war British infantry with a little extra support. I already had a Sherman and a Stuart painted from before so the lads can have a bit of armoured support. After taking the photos it occurred to me that I had not painted any badges onto the troops. I need to do a bit of research so that they can have proper unit identification and greater esprit de corps, but they are perfectly usable as is. Click the pics as usual for larger images.

The whole platoon

Command section including additional support from battalion (Vickers HMG, Sniper and a PIAT)

1 Section (9 men plus Bren)

2 section (organised as 1 section)

3 section (organised as 1 section)

 So, that's the late war troops ready for action. We did manage to get a couple of small USEME games played this month. I took no photos in the first one, which is probably just as well because it was an ignominious defeat for me, but I managed some photos of the second game and will post a report later.

Figures:
QRF
Peter Pig
Of the two, I prefer the sculpts of the Peter Pig figures, but the QRF figures add extra poses for variety.

Gaining Impetus - Vikings versus Saxons in Hooliganism Shocker

Well, we did no gaming in February, but managed to get a couple of games of Impetus played in March. I am only now getting round to posting about them. I took photos in the first game but most of them were out of focus and unusable. My fault for not checking what setting I had the camera on! I completely forgot to photograph the second game. Probably just as well because the Saxons won!

We really enjoyed playing Impetus. It went slowly as we learnt the rules and had to check everything twice in the rule book, but overall it was an enjoyable experience and we liked the way the game flowed. We shall certainly play a lot more Impetus as and when time allows. Here's the only photos that I thought were worth keeping (click the pics for larger images):

The Vikings in the foreground chose to deploy in one line. The Saxons deployed a flanking unit across the stream.

The Saxons advanced piecemeal from their position on the hill, while the heroic Viking commander tried to keep his line together and only detached troops from the end of the line to secure the flank.

March Objective - 15mm WW2 and SciFi

My primary objective for March is to paint my late war British troops for a forthcoming game or three of USEME WW2 from 15mm.co.uk. I only have a couple of sections plus a few extras to paint, because that is all the figures I actually have and I don't really need many more. If I achieve all of this quickly then I shall move on to my LRDG forces for the western desert. I have more of those, but Steve wanted to do late war because that is what he has figures for. I might have to give him my Afrika Korps figures and force him to paint them for a Rat Patrol style game. Now that sounds like a nicely evil plan!

My secondary objective  for February was to paint some of my 15mm sci-fi stuff for our forthcoming campaign. I managed to slap some paint on some of my troops but did not make much progress really, so I shall continue with this is my secondary objective for March too. My plan is to put together a small battlegroup comprising a battalion of mechanised infantry, an armoured squadron and a scout troop. I don't actually have all the figures needed to complete the infantry battalion but I do have the rest. The infantry currently lack APCs for one company and for the command team. If I complete my objectives for this month then I shall treat myself to the required vehicles.

Bwendi Mechanised Battlegroup

The BMB (I really need a better acronym for this lot) is organised as follows:
Infantry Platoon

• 1 command fireteam (1 platoon commander, 1 LAW operator, 1 sniper and 1 spotter)
• 4 infantry fireteams (1 team leader, 2 riflemen and 1 SAW gunner)
• 1 IFV with 75mm hypervelocity cannon carrying the command fireteam
• 2 IFVs with 20mm autocannon carrying two fireteams each

Infantry Company

• 1 command group (1 company commander, 1 Autocannon with three crew)
• 1 IFV with 20mm autocannon and AT missile launcher carrying the command group
• 2 infantry platoons

Infantry Battalion

• 1 battalion command group (battalion commander and his driver/ADC)
• 1 light scout vehicle with twin HMG carrying the battalion command group
• 2 RAM mortars each with two crew
• 1 IFV with 20mm autocannon and AT missile launcher carrying the mortar teams

Scout Troop

• 2 light scout vehicles with twin HMG
• 1 light scout vehicle with triple missile launcher

The scouts may dismount as two man teams

Tank Troop

• 1 command MBT with hi-energy laser cannon
• 2 MBTs with 120mm hypervelocity cannon

 Tank Squadron

• 1 command MBT with hi-energy laser cannon
• 1 skysweeper anti-aircraft unit on MBT chassis
• 2 tank troops

Infantry: Ground Zero Games New Israelis
APCs: QRF modern South African Ratels with bits from GZG models added
Tanks: GZG Cougar MBT
Scout vehicles: Brigade Models Javelot dune buggy

Primary Objective Achieved - More Vikings

So, I managed to achieve my pitifully small objective for February. Yup, I have added five more stands of Vikings to the army, thus making it possible to field a 300 point Impetus army. Getting painting this month has proven difficult for any number of reasons that I shall not enumerate here. Suffice to say that it was a miracle I found any time to paint at all, and I have not played a single game this month either, which is most disappointing. Click the pics below for larger images.

The New Vikings

The new Vikings comprise three stands of Baccus armoured spearmen and two stands of armoured axemen. I have used some of the mounted Vikings from the character pack to make these two stands of axement distinctive, because I intend to use them as guard huskarls, of which I am allowed two stands. This makes the stands more distinctive and adds a bit of character, as well as making it easier to differentiate the different stand types. Guard have a couple of mounted generals on them; veteran are just axemen; and run-of-the-mill huskarls are armoured spearmen. When I get around to painting the unarmoured spearmen, they will be the hird, as they are called in the lists (Don't get me started on that one!).

A 300 point Viking army for Impetus