Sengoku Japanese: Yari Samurai 2

As I've been on leave this week I've cracked on with a second unit of melee Samurai, again mostly Yari armed.

These chaps carry the colours of the Mori clan and are once again Fireforge Games miniatures. I did print off some tetsubo and converted one of them to carry this instead. 

Next up are some mounted Samurai and then probably some commanders.

Sengoku Japanese: Yari Samurai

Having painted plenty of Ashigaru it's now time for some Samurai to take the field. These are all Fireforge Games models from the melee box which gives plenty of options to make up different warriors. 

I've armed the majority with Yari as this became the dominant melee weapon as the period progressed but with a few chaps hanging onto their Naginata for use in Test of Honour. This also adds some more variety to the unit, not that it really needs it with the various armour and cloth colours. I also made a Nodachi armed leader for the unit by cutting the top off his sword and gluing another blade on top. It's probably not the strongest construction but plastic glue is normally pretty good. 

This gives me one of the two Samurai melee blocks I have planned for each side, these sports the mon of the Shimazu clan. Next up will be a similar unit for the Mori clan and then I've got some mounted Samurai ready to go. The good thing with the various different troops types is the ability to mix up what's on the painting table and keep things fresh. The multi-coloured armour ties are a bit hard on the old eyes though so I'll be glad to get back on the Ashigaru who have less of those to paint.

WW2: Fox and the Rat Campaign

After a couple of refresher games of V for Victory we are ready to kick off our combined VfV and 0200 Hours campaign, which should run over the next few months. I've knocked up a map and some campaign rules which are subject to change as we go along but at least give a starting point for some linked games.

The year is 1942 and the fight for North Africa has reached a critical junction with both sides taking the offensive. The Allies have opted to  attack along the coastal route whilst the DAK have taken to the interior in a flanking manoeuvre.

Each turn will consist of either one day action or one night action being taken by each side. So most turns will consist of two battles, one being chose by each side. Commando raids always happen at night and VFV actions can either be in the day or night time.

The aim is for each force to reach and capture the opposing town before the other side takes their town. Towns can only be taken by advancing your main force into the town square but this advance can be supported by commando raids to weaken the enemies fighting strength.

No more than 2 commando raids can be launched in a row before you need to make a VFV attack.

Commando targets

Name	Effect	Rebuilt?
Minefield	A thick belt of mines is present on the battlefield to hinder any advance.	N
A/T Gun	A free A/T gun can be placed on the battlefield by the defender for VFV battles.	N
Airfield/Artillery Battery	Gives a free artillery / plane barrage at the start of a VFV battle.	Y
Barracks	Allows you to assign reinforcements to either your defensive POI or your VFV forces. Captured commando’s are held at the barracks if one is available.	Y
Fuel Dump	Fuel and ammo is vital for your forces to fight effectively. Whilst the dump is destroyed you gain an addition Burn in any shoot/fight action in VFV and vehicles cannot go L in a move step.	Y

You can spend a turns action to rebuild a destroyed infrastructure item rather than attacking.

Experience & Recovery

VFV:

Recruit’s become Regular after one battle.

Regular’s become Elite after three battles.

Divisional units can never gain / lose experience levels.

Unit’s stationed in reserve regain 1 man per day with no loss of experience.

Men in the reserve platoon can be used to fill out the ranks of the fighting platoon but if they are of lower quality than the unit they are joining the unit drops one experience level.

Defending armies never gain experience and never track losses, they start as Regular each battle with the normal complement of men (unless bolstered by reserves from the Barracks).

0200

One commando that survived a battle (even if wounded or captured) may retain a Veteran card they have been assigned. A commando may never have more than one card assigned.

After action roll for dead/disabled commando’s

1	Miraculous escape, add the soldier straight back to your roster.
2-4	Limping in, the soldier escaped but must recover from his wounds. Add back to roster but he must sit out one day’s actions.
4-7	Captured, place in the enemies Barracks. If the barracks is not available then count as lost as he is sent straight back to HQ.
8	He’s dead Jim, send a letter back home as the soldier has made the ultimate sacrifice.

 

Barracks

Each barracks has eight men who can each be assigned each turn to either:

1). An attacking / defending VFV force where they fill up the grey infantry slots and do not impact the units experience rating.

2). Assigned as extra guards to a commando raid target.

You can change this each turn and divide them amongst multiple VFV forces / commando targets.

Airfield/Artillery Battery

Resources are limited so you must choose each turn if you are assigning these to either your attacking or defending army.

 

VFV battles

When you make your force selection you can choose to swap units from the main platoon with those in the reserve platoon. Men can also be moved from reserve sections to top up losses in heavy/special weapon teams, these teams can also be placed in reserve to regain losses as described above.

0200 battles

You must choose your commando team from the men available on your commando roster.

Something scary this way comes

After a completely unjustified amount of time thinking about colour schemes I have finally got round to putting paint to plastic for my Nightstalker Deadzone for which in time will fill out for a Firefight force.

Spectres

Scarecrow 

Reaper

Sengoku Japanese: Yumi Ashigaru II

This week I've completed the second unit of Yumi (bow) Ashigaru this time under the Mori banner. As with the previous unit we have one leader and nine yumi armed Ashigaru.

These again are all from the Fireforge games set and went together nice and easily. I'm aiming for 30 of these per side so 60 in total, so just the 40 left to go.

We also got a game of V for Victory in with one side (8th Army) attempting to escape across the table whilst the other attempts to cut them down. The blocking force comes on randomly and in the end most of my troops came in on one corner away from the escape edge.

Fortunately there where enough troops near my deployment and with a blocking section in a truck able to leap ahead of the Sikh's I was able to whittle enough of the Desert Rats down to claim a victory.

Sengoku Japanese: Teppo Ashigaru

Whilst a nasty cold has reduced my hobby energy by a large margin this week I did start the week off strong with the completion of some musket (teppo) armed Ashigaru and some painted bases to put them on.

I've got a couple of sets of banners to differentiate the two sides in combat so here we have one Mori and one Shimazu unit of skirmishing Ashigaru. As with the bow armed counterparts I've kept the armour simple so they can be intermixed and swapped around if required.

The bases are my own design and came off the 3D printer without issue, so I will be able to create movement trays for all the units as I go along.

I also have a tray for the archers I completed earlier, so I have twenty each of the ranged options so far. Many more to go though!

 

0200: Mine Clearance

I've been giving some thought to a combined 0200 & V for Victory campaign and amongst the ideas forming was a scenario that centred around clearing mines for an VfV assault game. 

This meant two things, I needed lots of mine field markers, and to think up some rules for minefield clearance. 

I found some STL files online and had a busy week printing them all out ready for the game on Friday, I didn't have time to get them painted so we had to play with some grey for once.

For this test game we used a Smarts test to 'spot' if the minefield was real or fake and then a Brawn test to clear it if it was indeed real.

As it happened the SAS got rumbled quite early on so hadn't managed to clear any minefields before the firing started but as they had quite a few spotted men in the centre of the table this did serve to draw the defenders away from the edger so some clearing was able to take place there.

We will be tweaking the rules to allow the attackers to randomly clear between 1 - 3 markers with a successful clear as it was a little slow for them, but otherwise the rules seemed ok.

The markers have now had a quick paint-job.

Sengoku Japanese: Yumi Ashigaru

 Since completing the first set of test models the other week I've been working to flesh out my first full unit of infantry. As I got a box each of the Ashigaru and Samurai shooters I started with the more straight forwards peasant infantry.

In line with my aim of keeping these chaps to a fairly simple scheme these are mostly in black armour with the odd red/brown variant thrown in and the under clothes of simple earthy tones.

Whilst building up the next batch to paint I noticed that each sprue (of 4 in the box) had 9 sets of legs and 6 bodies as well as 24 of each set of weapon arms. This means it would be possible to make an extra 12 men per box if I can get some bodies. I'm having a look around for 3D files as it feels like this would be an excellent job for 3D printing.

In other gaming news we visited our chums in the South Oxfordshire wargames club over the weekend for their Deadzone tournament. Despite some rough handling in game 2 I managed to wrack up 3 wins and came in third, adding to my trophy collection!