No Retreat The Russian Front Vassal game ends

Finished my online Vassal game with Daniel last night ending in abject and total defeat for my Germans.
Disastrous run of Exchange results over several turns saw the Whermacht bled white throughout 1942 and into 1943 with result that when initiative shifted to Soviets on Turn 12 (ie March-April 1943) they had well exceeded the auto-victory level required.
Tough for Germans if they take such losses as too expensive to restore units and very hard to trade real estate for time as recapture of cities simply increases Russian VP levels.
I guess the title of game says it all with Hitler style hold fast orders being the only real option.
Both myself and Daniel had not progressed this far in a game before so interesting to see how it played out when Ivans start churning out upgraded units and Huns get thin on the ground.
Great fun as always with this very playable game (works well in real time on Vassal as game can be saved between sessions but dont think its really viable via Pbem as too many interrupt type cards for both sides).

Endgame - note the amount of upgraded Ivan units (red counters) and the Hun losses in Destroyed box to right plus number of on map units reduced (ie flipped)

Same screenshot from within Vassal

Awards Season

Have been very kindly 'nominated' for this Leibster Award (no idea what it is though ?) by two jolly nice blokes Big Lee of BLMA (http://www.blmablog.com/) and Ian from The Blog With No Name    (http://walladvantage2.blogspot.co.uk/). Thanks chaps and glad you enjoy my ramblings.

So I include the 'rules' :-

The rules of the Leibster Blog Award very simple:

1. Copy and paste the award on your Blog linking it to the blogger who has given it to you.
2. Pass the award to your top 5 favorite Blogs with fewer than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their posts to notify them that they have won the award 
3. List your nominations (complete with links) on your own Blog.
4. Sit back and bask in that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing that you have just made someone's day!

And my nominations (this proved much harder than I thought with the less than 200 proviso and so many favoured and visited blogs !!!). So apologies to anyone I don't mention tis not a slight.

1. http://napoleonicsinminiature.blogspot.co.uk/ Paul Alba excellent blog with some very nice painted AB Napoleonic figures

2. http://pcjohnstone.wordpress.com/ Norman Johnstone blog a Vassal opponent and throughly nice egg. Nice mix of board and miniatures games. 

3. http://wargamesandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/ Brent Oman (author of Piquet Field Of Battle rules) another blog with mouthwatering paint jobs and since I love the Piquet family of rules its a no-brainer. (dont know why a bloke in Denver Colarado USofA has a .co.uk tag !?)

4, http://garagegamer.blogspot.co.uk/ Garage Gamer with some of biggest Napoleonics games I have seen. Sort of Wargames Holiday Centre in his own gaff !! Sod !! :-)

5. http://blundersonthedanube.blogspot.co.uk/ Gonsalvo Blunders On Danube blog another Piquet-centric site but  with loads of information and lots of scenario ideas. 

I could have easily listed another 10 or more blogs 

4Ground Building Kits

Managed to build the 'flat pack' style buildings and terrain stuff I bought at Warfare by 4Ground (several traders had these in 15mm and 28mm) http://www.4ground.co.uk/
I bought two multi-house packs a pack of walls and one of fencing.
They are MDF laser cuts but coloured (I believe they can be bought plain).
A bit of modelling assembly required but nothing to onerous for my trotters !
Few pics below but not doing them justice as lighting has yellowed image they look much nicer in reality. The fences and walls need some flocking on bases. Bases are designed to interlock for cornering so no corner pieces required.
Walls come with option to have sections damaged.
The houses are 3 storey affairs with ground, 1st and loft levels all of which come apart to allow figures to be physically placed inside.
Nice but am undecided whether to glue together permanently or not ?
Buildings are available in ruined style and these are very nice showing exposed internal floors/levels.
From memory the walls and fence packs were a reasonable £8 per pack (each 1.5m of stuff) the buildings I got were £13 and £20 not bad for 'painted' items.
Mate bought some Eastern Front suitable timber buildings also very nice.
There was also a very nice Church which I regret not buying despite the £30 price tag (it was this or don't eat on way home !!!)
I highly recommend this range of buildings.

Warfare 2012 (Four go mad at......)

Have returned safe and sound (of body if not of mind) and destitute from annual jaunt to Warfare. Accompanied again this year by the brothers Brittain and the very robust (in joke) Mr Pollock.
Usual overdose of traders, games and wargames waffling.
I bought very little lead this year (as last years still piled up) but still managed to spend every penny allotted and a wee (honestly darling) bit more.
Had to resist 'extreme' temptations of 10mm WW1 Germans, Plastic Soldier Coy 15mm Russians (I see this in my future) and 10mm ACW (those Kallistra figures calling to me again..............)
Did manage to acquire new Panzer boardgame despite this being a miniatures-fest and lots of terrain pieces and markers (I seemed to have more MDF than Ikea now !)
Same true of fellow travellers although 2 who will stay unnamed (ie John & Stephen P) wimped out and had funds left to but pressies for spouses at Duty Free (despite my advice that its simply the sign of a guilty conscience !!).
Added bonus this year I met up on the Saturday with Norman Johnston (an ex-pat Ulsterman) and Vassal enemy, nice to put a face to the name.
Of course looking forward to next year already although we are in discussion about Salute attendance as well/instead.

iPhone pics (in no particular order as too lazy to sort)

A Tiger II in huge Crossfire game set in Budapest 1945 using 1/48th scale kit

Budapest again

Square Bashing demo with 15mm Peter Pig figs

Random geeks shot

Hornets Nest at Shiloh ACW game

War & Conquest demo

Warlord game

Napoleonic game I think but cant recall details but very nice it was

Raphia with Lost Battles and Dr Sabin

Bloody Barons rules (?) no idea as to protaganists

Armati game (they seem to be there every year)

Bolt Action game with 28mm

Shiloh again

Crap shot of FOW competition included to show some nice MDF buildings of which I just had to purchase a couple

Battle of Loos in 6mm with PK Field Of Battle/Barrage hybrid

Budapest again with Hungarians facing Ivans

An IL2 dominating the scene

JSII approaches

Antietam in 10mm with thousands of Kallistra figs (drool) and their hex terrain system

Field of glory Napoleonics competition (this could tempt me)

I had pics of the FOG, FOGR (also tempting), DBMM  comps and more FOW but all too blurry to use. 

Bolt Action in action again

Following pics carry Government Health Warning and not suitable for under 18s or those of weak stomachs or nervous disposistions

John (wee one) Brittain pretending to be awake by sleeping with one eye open 

(snoring gave it away)

The robust Mr Pollock robustly drooling over his 6mm Time Cast buildings whilst bloody well and robustly blocking my view of Match Of The Day

A fine Time Cast ruined building in a ruined but robust hand 

(beverage in background for medicinal purposes only)

Robust my ass another chocolate soldier !!!!

Oh and the 'haul' (as always hard to believe the moneys worth on show !!)

Wargaming overload at Warfare 2012

Am heading off for annual jaunt to Warfare show in Reading with three fellow lunatics.
Looking forward to acquiring yet more stuff and usual social activities (ie Chinese & Indian restaurants).
Not 'planning' too buy too much lead or plastic as so much unpainted stuff it's scary !!
But the best laid plans etc etc
Am hoping to obtain more terrain bits and bobs and of course a couple of rule sets (Battlegroup Kursk pre-ordered).
Arranging to meet and greet Norman my Vassal opponent.
We shall see..........watch this space.........

A pic of last years trade hall

No Retreat via Vassal real time (and more brain barfs !!)

Was fiddling about on Vassal and a chap Daniel (from Paris) asked me to have a game of No Retreat on Vassal so of course I duly obliged.
We used second edition rules (which I have never tried before) and I took the German invaders. Things were going swimmingly until we realised we had both suffered brain barfs on second turn with some of my forces rampant due to ignoring fact that they were actually Out Of Supply !!
We decided to re-start and a much more sedate Op Barbarossa occurred.
But I was still susceptible to brain barfing as I left two of my Armies Out of Supply again near Leningrad !!
I can only claim a small moral victory as it was I that seen error and suffered consequences ie both armies Surrendered (worst that can happen to Germans in game).
This northern disaster fairly cramped my offensive and as Soviet reserves arrived I had to pull back (Hitler not impressed) to save my lines.
We have saved the game in and hope to resume it next week.
Great fun once I got over the strangeness of playing it with Vassal and Version 2.

Proper second attempt with usual rate of progress

Initial brain barf  effort with Germans kicking butt (circled units actually OOS prior to success)

Brain barf part deux as my units are OOS near Leningrad

Paths Of Glory face to face (and brain barfs !!)

Played Paths Of Glory last night at my Fathers (seemed sort of apt for Remembrance Day).
This is a really good and interesting game and this face to face game will hopefully help with my ongoing Vassal game (I find I take in the rules much better in a live time game).
However we had to re-start the game after 2 turns as I suffered a major brain-barf over the rules regarding Forts and Sieges !!
Had whole rules search and confusion as to how this occurred and if/how units in Fort conducted themselves in a Siege.
This was all pointless as bottom line is we missed rule (which I should have known from this and WW2 version) that disallows entry into ANY enemy occupied space.
Thankfully whilst we had several sieges we had only done couple of turns so thought it best to just re-start.


Restarted game was excellent (even though we failed to finish) with stalemate on Western Front and much to-ing and fro-ing in East, Italy were causing problems in southern Germany (but boy are there units weak !)
Neither of us had much idea about Balkans or Near East portions nor the Cards/Actions to use in these 'sideshows' even if we did.
Italy, Bulgaria and Turkey had all entered the war and we were both using the initial Mobilization decks and the Limited War decks.
As with these CDG games I love the decision process required for play of each and every card and the strategies/actions they allow and/or frustrate.
This one will definitely get more play

Action on Eastern Front

Stalemated lines forming on Western Front

And the 'brain barf' version with incorrect siege of Verdun etc