Fox & The Rat: Day 10: The A/T Gun

Lieutenant Flick peered nervously into the darkness ahead, his first mission in charge and at last a chance to show his men and himself what he was made of. Lt. Gruber had been covering himself in glory but had been captured attempting the very same mission that lay in front of Flick. With Sgft. Klinkerhoffen injured Flick had chosen Sgt Strohm to accompany him along with the experienced Schafer, Geerhart & Grosse.

The position looked lightly defended so the enemy had surely lowered his guard after the failed attack by Gruber, this bodied well for Flick. His plan was to make a bold advance with Strohm advancing from a different direction whilst the rest of the men provided covering fire. Once the firing started he would make straight for the gun whatever the risk.

He crept forwards and had reached the edge of the enemy lines undetected when Strohm encountered an enemy dog patrol. Strohm did not hesitate to open fire and two quick bursts of fire cut the enemy down. As Flick took cover behind some boxes the enemy started to respond to the automatic gun fire and actively look for targets.

Tense moments passed and Strohm was joined by the machine gun fire of Geerhart in engaging the enemy as they appeared near the target gun. This had the effect of drawing the enemy across Flick's position and eyes off of him. Schafer also joined in the fun with a single shot ringing out in the darkness to fell the defenders leading officer.

Spotting his chance Flick leapt forwards and in one well practiced motion placed the timed charge and kept moving. His actions drew some fire from the enemy but darting from cover to cover he evaded their attentions and kept moving back towards safety.

Flush with success Flick signalled his men to retreat and with a few shots fired to keep the defenders heads down they retreated into the night just as the charge detonated and the A/T gun was put out of action.

With this mission complete the road to Benghazi became less defended and the attack more likely to succeed. 

Sengoku Japanese: Yamashiro Fortification

It's not just an Englishman's home who's his castle, sometimes it's a Samurai as well.

I do like a castle and whilst the large sprawling castles of this period aren't going to be useful in Test of Honour for me a smaller more modest construction will be. I got this one from Oshiro Models and as I described earlier I was lucky to have James who runs the show reach out and help me make my vision a reality. 

It has taken me a little while to get around to this one but having painted up the village (also from James) very recently I had a scheme to work with and it all came together over a week. It's not the best or neatest paint-job but I think produces a good overall effect for the table.

I did make two additions to the original model for the tower, both 3D printed. Firstly I added a piece to the bottom of the big roof section to make it sit snuggly on top of the bottom floor. 

The original model is designed to have some banisters around the top most tower, which look great but stop you putting any based models at the top. So I designed a quick tower caddy to pop the top most piece in to give space to put models on. Again, with this one I put a piece underneath to sit inside the lower room and aid stability. 

Now it's ready to repel raiders or perhaps be a vantage point for sneaky Ninja's!

Fox & The Rat: Day 9 Battle 2 - The Race

It was all over, the British hopes of reaching Benghazi were in tatters.  Lieutenant Singh was distraught - his brave Punjabi boys had been massacred and yet here he still was and not a scratch on him.

There was a small fuel dump just off a rudimentary road.  Up the road was a basic hut with a well inside a type of courtyard.  Initially it looked like the British had come up trumps - they could replenish their dwindling water and ‘liberate’ well-needed fuel supplies.  Before they could get too excited though they could hear the low groan of DAK armour and see the clouds of dust showing that Jerry had the same idea and wasn’t going to let them stroll in and take it.  An SDKFZ-250 complete with an infantry section rumbled into view and was then lost again behind the building.  A truck emerged and disgorged another section near to the fuel while Lieutenant Singh sent one of his own sections to contest this.  He brought up his medium mortar behind a sand dune to give covering fire.

His own ‘armour’ - a Humber MkII from the recce squadron supported the infantry by the fuel dump while his second infantry section were going to try and probe the centre.  The Hun brought up a recce squad in a Kubelwagon ahead of the well on the British left and Lieutenant Singh would send his jeep borne medium machine team to deal with them when they eventually turned up - where the blasted damn were they?

The Royal Artillery did their best to help the Sikhs but on this occasion they were a little off the mark and Jerry pushed on unperturbed.  The British centre section soon took a hell of a battering from the Jerry’s in and around the courtyard by the well, the recce team and the half-track moving up on their flank.  The British mortar and the MMG when it got set up damaged the recce team but it was not enough to redress the balance.  Meanwhile by the fuel dump lieutenant Singh thought his men had the Hun when the Humber moved up on the flank of an LMG team but couldn’t make it count and return fire from these and some other infantry scurrying about in the palms did for the Sikh’s own LMG team and they were cut down.  The only ‘consolation’ was the medium A/T gun brought up by Jerry to deal with the Humber was as ineffectual as the scout car.

The Humber wasn’t going to hang around to see if they got any better and set off to support what was left of the infantry in the centre.  The SDKFZ had moved out of sight to avoid this and a forlorn attempt by the HQ squad to attack the half-track with grenades was a failure although they didn’t sustain any casualties which was reward for their foolhardy courage.

The game was up.  Jerry had the fuel and the water.  Lieutenant Singh and what was left of his force had to beat a hasty retreat and try to extricate as many of their fallen comrades as possible.    

Sengoku Japanese: Shimazu Ride Forth

Here are the first unit (of two) Shimazu cavalry completed for the army and ready to ride down their foes. As always these are Fireforge miniatures models who have a great plastic kit to work with.

I've also been busy putting some artillery together for both sides and they have joined the painting queue which for the battlefield armies is now growing reasonably short.

I've also painted up another Test of Honour model, the Geisha Spy. She may (or may not) be featuring in a scenario in the near future.

Sengoku Japanese: Shimazu Leaders and a Test of Honour

This week the first of the Shimazu commanders take to the field with the foot versions being completed. Using the same box as before from Fireforge you get a good mixture of commanders with some taking it easier than others. I also have three mounted commanders from the box to paint up.

At least the troops are no longer leaderless!

We also played our second game of Test of Honour with Stu coming over with his birthday Sohei Monks to take on the home team's Samurai and Ashigaru.

The Home Team

The scenario saw the Monks attacking an outpost defended by a portion of my brave boys whilst reinforcements came on from behind my lines.

The opening move saw the Monks shoot and seriously wound my leader, he needs to make sure that some peasants are the closest target in the future so he's not so easily inconvenienced. My crack team of musketmen however didn't manage to hit anything for the whole game and so proved to be an expensive and ineffective addition to the team. 

The game moves along really quickly with combat being reasonably bloody as long as you don't fluff your dice rolls.

In the end the Monks came out on top as they cut down my leader and one of his companions leaving only a travelling Samurai to hold the enemy off. He did manage to kill the enemy leader though to salvage some honour for the home team.