Saturday 31 May 2014

Dunkelgelb? Or Dunkelgelb? Or Maybe Dunkelgelb?

Having recently purchased some Bolt Action Dunkelgelb spray paint, I came to the realisation that not all spray paint is created equal.

This Panther is base coated with Battlefront German Armour Spray (now unavailable)

This Jagdpanther is base coated with Plastic Soldier Company Dunkelgelb spray

And this Jagdtiger is base coated with Bolt Action Dunkelgelb spray from Warlord Games

And here is my problem, this is all three of them side by side. They go from yellow, to yellow/green to beige

I am aiming for a colour approximate to Vallejo 882 Middlestone, which is probably somewhere between the first two. And I understand there is much debate as to the actual colour 'Dunkelgelb' is supposed to be, but I am just looking to try and make models on the tabletop look like they are from the same army. With that in mind, I have obtained more of the PSC Dunkelgelb, and given the Jagdtigers another coat.

Friday 23 May 2014

National League - Day Two

We resume the action after an evening of light refreshments in the hotel bar:

Game Four - Neil Mason, Fallschirmjager, Free For All

I was not a fan of this table. 2 thirds of my opponents side of the table was declared as rubble at the start of the game. As a mechanised company with lots of wheeled and jeep vehicles, a large part of the board was impassible to me.

My force moves into the rubble, where the Jacksons would spend most of the game bogged down

The Chaffees used their many machine guns to try and keep Neil from reinforcing the objective I was trying to attack

His FJ pioneer platoon did not get any further into my half than this church, with the objective in the woods in front of him, along with lots of armoured cars behind the wood

One armoured car patrol dashed forward after he started moving his Pak 40s forward, to try and halt their advance, and to make a run for a now lightly defended objective


Many bitterly fought assaults took place for this objective, with Neil losing an infantry platoon, and me losing the bulk of both my infantry and the bazookas from the TTD. Both platoons became leaderless, so just had to watch the objective from afar. I could not get a higher command team close enough to promote someone due to the rubble


The Pak 40s made short work of the recon, but had to give up several turns moving the wrong way to do so

2 Jacksons unbogged long enough to come up and contest the objective

So close

But reinforcements made it in time to contest. This game timed out, and ended 2-2. Neil was a great opponent, but I think we both would have enjoyed the game more with some more favourable terrain.

Game Five - Tony Robinson, Churchill Company, Fighting Withdrawal

I am a fan of Fighting Withdrawal, especially when I get to defend, which I did on this occasion.

King Tigers and infantry hold the right objective
Panzer IIIs and 3.7cm AA hold the centre objective

And Tiger Is hold the left objective


Tony starts deploying

Lots of Churchills on this flank

Whilst M10s are deployed to come down the middle




The 1iC and 2iC join the Tigers on my left

The game starts with UCs and Churchills harassing the infantry on the right objective


The Churchills on my left advance more cautiously



Panzer IIIs move out

Hoping to bag themselves some UCs, and draw the M10s into the middle

Whilst King Tigers take some long range shots at the Churchills

The Panzer IIIs get a UC

And the M10s start heading towards them






The M10s make short work of the Panzer IIIs, not much they can do against AT15


But the King Tigers take out some Churchills

Whilst Churchill CS tanks smoke the 1iC



Tigers only manage to bail a UC

And Tony slowly advances

The infantry are kept pinned down by the UCs

Until they get withdrawn, and the KTs then start picking on UCs

Tigers get themselves another UC

But Tony is really pushing me on my left flank now

The M10s come looking for some revenge on the Tigers in the middle of the table

And the King Tigers start to relocate after the UCs are dealt with



The M10s commit themselves to dealing with these Tigers

They kill one and bail one

But attract the attention of the King Tigers, who they can only bail from the front

And the King Tigers take out another M10

The last M10 tries to take out the other Tiger, but misses it at short range


5-2 to the Germans. If I were Tony, I would like to think I would have been more aggressively going after one of the objective, rather than committing to all three, but then again, I would not have liked to try and dig out his Churchills if our positions had been reversed. 
So I won two, lost two, and had an incomplete fair fight. And so the weekend ended with Reluctant Conscripts Alpha sitting firmly mid-table, and the possibility of a match up against the now relegated Reluctant Conscripts Bravo next year.