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.

 

 

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.

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...

Starting over with the Soviets

When I started doing 15mm a few years ago, I was rushing to get my Soviet stuff on the table.  I hadn't figured out proper colours, and hadn't painted much in the way of 15mm.  While happy with my infantry, etc. I am generally not super happy with my initial vehicles.

Towit...I am now going to start slowly re-doing, replacing my Soviets over time.  I started with stripping down and repainting a couple of my trucks, and painting up some 3D printed lend-lease Jeeps for use with my officers.

We out here slangin' HE. (SU-152 content)

I took an old Zvezda SU-152 that I painted a while ago and stripped it down.  I added another new Zvezda one along side it.  I will never use two SU-152's most likely, but they were fun to repaint.

Zvezda 15mm T-70's...opinions included!

I've recently received a few orders from 'The Estonian' (an Estonian eBay shop which sells quite a selection of Zvezda at very fair prices).

I decided to start reducing the pile and I put together three of the new Zvezda 15mm T-70's.  While they're serviceable kits, I can't recommend them - particularly compared to the very nice Battlefront one.  However, as usual, at $3.50 a pop, they're tough to ignore.

The Zvezda models are far more true-scale, which means very very spindly/tiny gun barrels, tracks, machine guns, etc.  The pins/guides for assembling are very small, and I suspect as the molds age, this kit will get worse and worse.  It's also, unfortunately, a lot of pieces...for no real reason.

Am I happy having three more painted T-70s?  Sure.  But it was not a pleasant build and I highly suspect I'll be replacing snapped barrels sooner rather than later.  The Battlefront kit is simpler and more robust (admittedly some details are exaggerated, but for game play...I find this an acceptable trade off.).

Enough rambling, tanks!

Solo Battlegroup for testing

 The other evening I got the Battlegroup Facebook group involved in helping me randomly design forces for a 400 point solo Battlegroup game.  I only played about four turns but it was just to see how the randomization tables worked.

I concocted D66 tables for both Soviets and Germans for 1943 (just post Kursk), with both an Attacker and Defender table for each.  I had people on the Facebook group roll for me and I assembled the two forces to try them out.  It worked pretty well.

Just some pictures from the game: