Hillman

 This was a WW2 game run by Martin a couple of weeks ago using 15mm toys and a version of John's 'Battlegroup' rules.
Apparently Martin had been planning this game for around 17 years, partly inspired by a visit.  I visited the site in 2005 and I can well understand why it proved such a problem in 1944.
A full report appears over on Martin's blog so aside from photo captions I'll not repeat the course of the game.

 The Suffolks form up on the outskirts of Coleville.

 A squadron of the Staffs Yeomanry in Hermanville.

 The wicked Germans were quick with a mortar stonk

KG56 put in a brief appearance. The Ju88 survived land and sea based flak and the RAF but sadly failed to hit it's target.  I built this 1/144 scale model in the late 1990s and bodged it into a night fighter version.  The paint effect was achieved by painting the thing black and then adding oversprays of dark and light grey while the previous coat was still wet.

 The Staffs - with an added troop of DD Shermans from 13/18 Hussars - laid down barrages of HE on the Hillman position.

 It looked impressive and kept the Germans' heads down.

 A particularly troublesome bunker was treated to concentrated fire

 Not a sight my die rolling often produces!

 By now the German gunners were warming up.

 Ouch!  But by now the main British assault was about to go in.

 It was led by heroic assault engineers ...

 ...who did away with a troublesome MG position.

 Mopping up would continue for some time but we had broken the main 

German resistance.  Clearly it was the tanks wot done it....

The A-Team.  Col. Armatys, J; Maj. Mecredy, T; Capt. Elsmore, J; Cpl. Gow, T.

Games played in 2016

As with previous years this list shows a pleasing variety of periods and game styles,  Even the toy soldier games involved at least eight different scales!
Sadly the list is incomplete as towards the end of the year my updates became less frequent.

The guns of August?  British artillery in action at the Somme, August 2016.

Date, Game, Rules, Scale, Players

3 January, Megiddo 1457BC, CCA, 25mm, 1

6 January, Latvia 1919, 15mm, 5

13 January, Skagerrak at dusk, 1/1200, 7

20 January, Skagerrak at dawn, 1/1200, 3

20 January, Cursus Honorum III, card game, 3

27 January, Delaying Action 1981, NBC, 2mm, 5

3 February, Megiddo 1457BC, CCA, 25mm, 5

10 February, Tsarskoe Selo 1919, 15mm, 5

17 February, Grudge Match 1981, NBC, 2mm, 5

2 March, Fleurus 1622, 2mm, 5

5 March, A Fistful of Herring playtest, 1/1200, 6

30 March, Battalion Assault, LCW, 54mm, 3

27 April, The Riasy Insurgency, Sci-Fi, 25mm, 6

4 May, Sahagun 1808, CCN, 15mm, 6

18 May, Troy 1184BC, CCA, 25mm, 6

22 June, Company D, 15mm, 4

26 June, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth - Berlin 1961, 16

28 June, Boyne, FLW, 54mm, 2

6 July, Suitcase Sagger playtest, 6

8 July, Holy Relics! COW plenary game, 47!

9 July, Wargame 2020, map game, 18

9 July, We sail the ocean blue, 1/900ish, 10

9 July, Suitcase Sagger, lawn game, 10

9 July, A Fistful of Herring, 1/1,200, 10

9 July, Terrorist Bingo, 10

20 July, Quartermaster General, board game, 5

27 July, Sorauren 1813, CCN, 15mm, 3

3 August, The Blue Nuns, Challenges & Adventures, 4

5 August, Somme 1916, FLW, 54mm, 3

10 August, Quartermaster General, board game, 5

17 August, Somme 1916, FLW, 54mm, 5

31 August, Company Attack, Platoon Commanders War, 15mm, 3

7 September, Edgehill, Marson Less, 2mm, 5

14 September, Pteria 547BC, CCA, 25mm, 6

12 October, Siege of Lachish 701BC, CCA, 25mm, 4

26 October, The M Class planet, Sci-Fi, 25mm, 6

2 November, Poltroonery in the Panjshir, 28mm, 5

9 November, Lincoln, ACW board game playtest, 5

16 November, Rumble in the railyard, 28mm, 5

30 November, I Shot The Sheriff, Shootin' Time, 54mm, 4

14 December, Terrorist Bingo, 5

14 December, Active Service Unit, 5

21 December, Rollbahn Ost, 3

28 December, Misiche 244AD, CCA, 25mm, 5

28 December, Cartenspiel, 6mm, 5

28 December, Exploding Kittens, card game, 5

Great War Trenches - Belgium 2016

I was doing a bit of tidying up on the blog recently and realised that I hadn't posted these photos from my trip to Belgium last February.  Taken at the Passchendaele Memorial Museum at Zonnebeke, they show some of the replica trenches and dugouts which have been built there.  It's a splendid museum - as well as the trenches and lots of hardware there is a replica of a deep dugout (not for the claustrophobic!).

Another hurried Hind.

You'll remember the Esci Mi-24 which I was definitely going to finish last month?  Right.  Regular readers will not be at all surprised to learn that I was distracted by other matters.  One such was another Hind kit, this time the Airfix version which I picked up for £5 at Triples in 2015.

 I could make up a tale about wanting to compare and contrast the two kits but who'd believe it?

There were no issues with the build.  If anything this is a slightly cruder kit than the Esci effort and  represents an earlier version of the Hind with the familiar (to those of us of a certain age anyway) chin turret and Sagger AT missiles.

So now I have two large helicopters awaiting paint!

Even more storage solutions

 I have mentioned in the past my acquisition of more than a few of the Really Useful Boxes.  These are stackable plastic crates with lids which lock on.  A few months ago I decided to rationalise the storage of my 25mm pointy-stick armies as despite being all neatly labelled, preparation for a game seemed to involve rooting through large numbers of 4 and 9 litre boxes.
I thus decided to move largely to the larger but still quite shallow 10-litre boxes for storage, and to decant the required figures for a game into (usually no more than two) of the smaller boxes for transport.

This means that rather than being scattered across several boxes, my Roman legionaries and auxilia are gathered here in one.

  Similarly we have the 'Persian Cavalry' box.

While the 10 litre boxes can accommodate all but the longest pointy sticks some oddities have to live in taller boxes,  Behold the 'Elephants and Camelphracts' box!

Misiche 244AD

We played this scenario back in March 2015 but, in need of a game for last Wednesday I sorted out the toys again and assembled an elite team of players.  Well some players anyway.
On the least we have the Sassanids under Shapur I and played by Russell and Nick.  On the right are the Romans under Gordian III played by Jerry and Martin.

 The striking force of the Persian army was on the right - four units of cataphracts and a pair of elephants.

 The Romans started within bow shot of the Sassanid infantry.

 The Romans were sufficiently annoyed to move forward...

 ...while Shapur led forward his elite troops.  And an elephant.

Battle is joined in the centre.  The camelphracts have come galloping over the hill (a sight to see!) and attached Gordian.

 Alas the camels perished in the attempt, but it'll make a good scene in the film version.

 On the Persian right a heavy cavalry grudge match was underway.

 The rather more jumbled armies at half time.

 Confused fighting in the centre.

 This elephant inflicted several hits.  Some on the enemy....

 The end.  Gordian overturns history by claiming a seventh blood-soaked banner...

...while Shapur managed only five.

The real Gordian III was killed during or shortly after the battle.  Not neccessarily by the Persians.  He was aged nineteen.