Batman (Board) Begins

New project time, a three by three foot board for the Batman Miniatures Game (BMG). The board will also be used for Infinity, Marvel, Zombie Post Apoc, Moderns and any near future stuff.

The first board is going to be down the docks and for extra challenge is going to be laid out diagonally.

The centrepiece of the board will be the MSV Ironsides model by TT Combat. That will sit across the board in a rectangular dock. One side will probably have a stone wall the other will be faced with wood.

Rather than churning out area terrain to quickly get a game going this time the main aim is to take a little longer over the details so this is a test piece before starting on the real thing.

Paracadutisti Month 3 - Well, someone has to sell the ice-cream

Month 3 marks the start of everyone's second platoon, and also the halfway point for those of us looking to build a whole company (errr... hopefully that isn't just me). As we agreed at the beginning of the escalation league, starting a second platoon also means that you need an HQ, in addition to the compulsory two sections and a lieutenant.

Given that I don't want to change the composition of my veteran late-war Paracadutisti squads, and even opting for the cheapest non-inexperienced officer that I can (a regular Captain) in addition to a regular second lieutenant, that will still constitute... all of my points for this month. Not even enough left over to buy him a little Fiat 500 Militaire staff car, as so ably modelled below. Oh well, at least there are no agonising decisions to make this month.
 

If only Britney Spears had been wearing puttees and jodphurs during the infamous gussetgate incident...

Since list building this month was a complete no-brainer, you might expect that I'd anticipated the miniatures I was going to need and already finished painting them. And you would be wrong. Still, I made a start today by getting the miniatures cleaned up and onto their bases, and if the heavens don't open again I should be able to get them undercoated too.

The silver lining to the lack of options this month is that another 500 points at least gives me the opportunity to finish up a coherent platoon of Paracadutisti from the same range, and painted in the same camo. I changed both manufacturer and colour scheme halfway through my last platoon, so my force is looking like rather a mixed bunch at the moment. In particular, I moved away from using Battlefront's Flames of War Compagnia Paracadutist miniatures - most of whom are wearing shorts, and look far more suitable for Paracadutisti Folgore in North Africa than for fighting on home soil - for Eureka's excellent Paracadutisti who are clad in much bulkier gear, supplied by Fighting 15s. Once I've finished the miniatures for this month, I will at least be able to scrape together a full platoon of the latter.

With half an eye on Chain of Command, I'm also going to take the opportunity to work on some support units and squad options which I haven't chosen for Bolt Action but which I will likely require for CoCs more proscriptive list building. So into the painting queue go some LMGs, an MMG, and a medium mortar. I'm also casting around looking for things I can use to put together some diorama-style reconnaissance markers and jumping-off points (more on that later)...

More 15 in 2016

We may have run out of steam a little after month two (not in the least because Ed appears to have adopted the Fabian strategy that if he doesn't buy any miniatures, he can't technically lose a game) but it's now a new year full of new opportunities to miss painting deadlines.

At the very least I would like to use the next 500 points to round out a full Bolt Action platoon of Paracdutisti (with options) that we can then use in the newer, shinier and more Henry Hyde approved World War 2 games such as Chain of Command and Battlegroup which are already starting to turn heads in our gaming group - including mine.

Plus, it seems rather chulish to bring our Italian campaign to a close just before Warlord Games release their theatre specific book for the Mediterranean conflict, backed full of juicy new scenarios...

Duel in the Sun comes out on the 20th February - making the 25th a good deadline for 1,500 points.

Month 2 Redux

A second round of games was played month 2. Eurgh no comment from the 3rd.

	US Airborne	184th Italian	H.G. Division	Gebirgsjager	US 3rd Infantry
Win	3	3	2	1	0
Loss	0	1	2	3	3
Draw	0	0	0	0	0
Played	3	4	4	4	3
Points	9	9	6	3	0

Campaign

The HG Score a win over the 3rd Infantry to move up to 3rd place and the Italians defeat the Gebirgsjager.

Axis 3

Allies 5

Month 2: Blue on Blue

So the clanking of treads and rattle of machine guns have gone quiet and the dust has settled on month two of the Bolt Action escalation league.

Scores on the wars are..

	US Airborne	184th Italian	Gebirgsjager	H.G. Division	US 3rd Infantry
Win	3	2	1	1	0
Loss	0	1	2	2	2
Draw	0	0	0	0	0
Played	3	3	3	3	2
Points	9	6	3	3	0

3pts for a win 1pt for a draw

This month saw the jeepborne airborne and the Italians go head to head for top dog. The HG Division even managed to snag a win dragging the Gebirgsjager down to their level.

Campaign

This puts the Allies further ahead. As the second game was blue on blue only the US/Italian game counted.

Axis 2 

Allies 4

Hobby

Everyone completed their allotted painting tasks, although for some it was touch and go (thankfully for me the check in was delayed a week). The US 3rd did not see the field due to a bout of illness striking their HQ.

Player	1000 Pts Painted	Games Played	Blog Post
Jon	2	2	2
David	2	2	2
Ed	Bye	2	2
Tom	2	2	2
Darren	2	1	2

Month 3

So final month is upon us already and we all have our final 500 points to add,  remember:

• You can field a single platoon for every 1000 points so you can field a second platoon now.
• Each platoon must include a platoon HQ and 2 Rifle Squads.
• If you include more than one platoon then you must include a company HQ.
• Lists are chosen from the basic BA selector with FOW lists for Italy used to dictate equipment and general organization.
• Units can be chosen from the above based on a time frame of Sep 43 (mid war) to Jun 44 (late war)
• You must keep the original list fielded last month.
• No vehicle over DEF 8, Forward Air Observers or Forward Artillery Observers in the first 500 points.

5th Gebirgsjäger - Month 2

The first month of this campaign was one of mixed fortunes for me with one win and one loss.  The first game was fairly successful (possibly in part due to a slight misreading of the sniper rules in my favour) but my troops were quite static.  In the second game, against Tom's yanks, the all infantry list seriously suffered for it's lack of mobility. I had barely made it half way to the objective before the american CO had bravely sprinted off the board with the intelligence!

To help deal with this, the first on the list for month two was a truck to carry my smg armed assault squad up field quickly.  With a transport capacity of twelve I can also fit in a weapon team and/or the CO if needed.

The rest of my choices are there to let me try out some new things: an HMG team can lay covering fire more efficiently than my expensive infantry squads, a 105mm LG40 recoilless rifle gives me some artillery support, and a panzerfaust team should be able to deal with any armour that pops up,

I also added some armoured support of my own.  A little research revealed that the 5th were equipped with a batallion of captured Italain Semovente's.  One of these (the 75/18 variant) quickly made it into my list.  It mounts a medium howitzer, so combined with the LG 40 I should have a good amount of artillery and light anti armour capability as required.

The few points left over were used to top up the smallest infantry squad with a couple of extra men.

But the stars of the show have to be... the pack mules!  These are not in my list at the moment, but I couldn't resist making up a couple for decoration (I can't really see the point of them in game to be honest!). They are Peter pig horses with green stuff baggage.

Reinforcements!

TV-Show: Cosmic Patrol - Pilot Episode - Season 1

Ep. #	Title	Directed By	Starring	Date Aired
Pilot	Comet of Mystery	Darren Hardy Jon C Tom Clover	Jon – Captain Cody Carragher Tom  - William “Bat-Ears”  Bradley Darren – Audrey Orion Michael – M34 - Bel Ed – Professor Yawitz	12-Nov-1965
The Crew of the Atomic Annie are on a desperate mission to intercept a mysterious comet but before they can get there they have to deal with a rogue kill bot bought on board by their own intelligence agent Audrey Orion. Bumbling Venusian Professor Yawitz suffers a transporter tube accident and can’t tell left from right. Audrey and Bat- Ears mange to switch the kill bot from kill to dance setting and Yawitz shoots the ships cat by accident. Captain Carragher “heroically” auto pilots the ship past some comet debris but once they reach the comet they find it crawling with Space Pirates! The crew dispatch special envoy M34-Bel in the hope he can talk the pirates into surrender (or the pirates will get rid of M34-Bel for them) while they develop a sun cream strong enough to block out the intense solar radiation coming from the comet. M34-Bel discovers the Space Pirates are equally blessed with their own alien envoy and finds a kindred spirit, but when contact is lost with the ship Captain Carragher decides to storm the comet…. As the comet disintegrates under the Atomic Annie’s Hyper-Drill, the Captain manages to convince the pirates to surrender and the crew escape using Audrey’s Phasic Reality Distorter. Guest Stars: Peter Lore as the Alien Envoy and Slim Pickens as Pirate Captain Grimtitz

buy the series on video here