Battlegroup: Kursk (Soviets and Germans)

Just a few pictures of a Battlegroup game from this afternoon.  A 500 point game of Soviets vs. Germans with the Soviets stealing the win while being mauled by the Germans.  A lot of infantry casualties and a lot of mortar fire.

 

 

Games!: Revised Battlegroup

 Our local group has fallen out of love with Battlegroup lately, but I've been adding a bunch of house rules/tweaks to bring the game a bit more interest and we played for the first time in a while this past weekend.  I forgot to take pics, but a buddy snapped a few!

Rummaging for 15mm left-overs...

Trying to do anything other than paint more Battle Masters, I rummaged through my box of leftover 15mm kits, and found these four.  I painted them up in short order.  All are 15mm Battlefront/Flames of War kits, as usual.

Some more 15mm replacements.

Starting to add/redo some of my Soviet 15mm force since I painted them before I really understood 15mm and had my better colour palettes established.

 

I knocked out these two BA-64 scout cars, and three T-70 light tanks yesterday.  Not my best work, but suitable.

 

 

Some solo-Battlegroup.

I ran a solo game of Battlegroup today to test some house rules, and some randomized force tables I wrote up a while ago.  I had the guys on Facebook roll for the units.

 

The Germans ran into a pretty impossible scenario, though they almost eke'ed out a win at the end.

 

 

15mm Battlegroup Inventory - November '23

While stacking and sorting stuff in 15mm, I snapped some inventory pictures of the current 15mm collection.  The Soviets occupying six 4L boxes, while the Germans have stepped up to five themselves.  Room in both collections for other additions as needed.

Soviet core tanks.

Soviet infantry platoons.

Soviet assault guns, tank hunters and tracked artillery.

Soviet trucks, tractors, armoured cars and light tanks.

Soviet lend-lease vehicles and armour.

Soviet special units, artillery, anti-tank guns, and platoon support options.

German self-propelled guns, tank hunters and assault guns.

German core tank units and StuGs.

German anti-tank guns, special units and platoon support options.

German infantry platoons.

German trucks, cars, tractors, half-tracks and armoured cars.

More walls...this time in stone.

As I sat down at the hobby desk yesterday to pick something to build/paint...I remembered I had to finish off this other set of resin 15mm walls.  Instead of brick these were stone.

 

Finishing off the 15mm stack of shame.

Well, this is it.  I've finally built/painted the large stack of 15mm crap I had sitting in a box lid, staring at me while I was hobbying.  I'll be taking a break for a bit from 15mm...finally, but happy to finish this batch.  Two Battlefront Panzer III M's.

Replacing some old BA-10's (Zvezda)

So, early in my 15mm adventure, I put together (while swearing incessantly) two BA-10 Soviet armoured cars produced by Zvezda.  Why was I cursing?  They decided to make an armoured car in 26 pieces...for 15mm scale (a little over 1.5" long).  Tiny obnoxious tires, wheels, suspension, headlamp stalks, etc.  A really ridiculously stupid kit.  It was so dumb I believe they simply downscaled a 20mm kit.  This also meant that every piece of it was tiny and risked breaking when you touched them.

They also went together poorly with large seams running down the whole bodies...etc.  Basically a nightmare.  On top of that I was painting fast and furious without having done much 15mm, so my end results were poor.  I tended to avoid using them in games solely because I hated them.

Well, around 3-4 years later that has finally been rectified.  I received two 3D print models from a buddy (along with all the other crap I've painted in the past two days), and painted up some replacements.

Nicer models, nicer paintjobs, and more robust for gaming.

Compared to the older Zvezda kit on the right.

New 3D print vs. older Zvezda build.

The BA-10 collection.

One more of my Soviet bins filled to bursting at this point...

A few 20mm AA guns for the Germans

Just wrapping up some more of the prints I received recently.  Two 20mm FlaK 38's.  One with a Fallschirmjaeger crew, and one with a standard Grenadier crew.

German prime movers...finally.

I've been looking for 3D printed prime movers for my Germans for a couple years at this point.  I finally picked up a few from a buddy, and slapped some paint on them.  I'm not terribly happy with the results, but I can deal since they're just there to drag stuff around.  My German transport collection has been growing steadily.

Some brick walls for 15mm.

I ordered some stone and brick walls from Monday Night Gaming(?) via eBay.  Unfortunately, upon arrival they were exactly what I expected - poorly sculpted and cast components.  The type you'd get for $5 at a convention off a rack.  Very late-90's feeling stuff.

I spent way too much time cutting off flash, excess resin, leveling the bottoms, etc.  However, the end result of at least one set is acceptable for gaming.  Just too much work needed to make them look decent.

 

 

I can see the light at the end of the...(train sounds)

I'm trying desperately to make visible headway against a few box-lids of minis I have just sitting around.

I knocked out a Zvezda Marder III M (fun fact I had actually thrown this out when I hit it with a primer that turned chunky...I then recovered it and stripped it using alcohol).

I also repainted a Zvezda Opel Blitz (not pictured), and used two Zvezda and two Battlefront minis to knock out all three versions of the Sdkfz. 234 armoured car.  I now have no fewer than eight different armoured cars for the Germans to scout around with!