More Dominion of the Blitzkrieg

 A couple of weekends ago I played a few more games of DOTB.  Partly to get more experience of the game in different theatres of war and partly as an excuse to get out some 6mm toys which haven't been seen for a while.  I'm happy to report that the following dozen or so games all produced credible results. Total playing time including setting up and packing away was a little over two hours.

I hope you enjoy the reports and photos.

More Dominion of the Blitzkrieg. Khalkhin Gol, 1939.  Played on the big board with (generally) three stands to a unit.

Some of the Sov infantry is dug in

Tank brigades with light and medium tanks and armoured cars.

A Japanese victory!

Japanese artillery - all GHQ models.  These are quite 'new', having been painted c10 years ago!

Japanese tanks - Type a 95 and 97.

Game two. A very similar result.
Game 3. And another Jap victory!  Makes you wonder why they didn’t build more tanks!

At last, a Soviet victory! And a much longer game. The jap artillery was silent, the infantry line crumbled and then the (elite) Sov tanks overran the remnants.

A change of climate now, and back to the small board for Soumussalmi. Late war Germans standing in for the Finnish infantry (try to ignore the Panzerfausts!). The debut flight of the Finns' borrowed bomber.

A hard fought Finnish victory. The Sov artillery never fired and their tanks all broke down. Mind you, the bombers were pretty useless.

That was closer!  Again the tanks didn’t show but artillery shelled the Finnish airfield.

Bialystok—Minsk!  A very busy battlefield.

An appallingly bloody battle, ending when panzers overran the Sov airfields.

A less good result for the Fuhrer’s lads.  More were SB2 enjoying their combat debut. By contrast, most of the German kit has been in service since the mid-eighties. Some of it is even older.

In the third battle of Bialystock the Sov bombers don’t show up but the Heer is soon seen off by the workers, peasants and T-28s. The Luftwaffe is heard to complain of being ‘stabbed in the back’ by the army.

Jitra, Malaya 1941.  Two Japanese victories but the Brits finally triumphed third time round.

I say British - actually these chaps are Indians, built for the wars of 1965 and 1971.

Dominion of...The Blitzkreig

 

Yet another Dominion of... variant now!  I confess that I approached this one with a degree of scepticism, but happily that turned out to be misplaced.  As with it's predecessors this book contains the rules, a detailed example game and a number of scenarios.  To give it a proper try out I decided on two very different battles using my 6mm toys.

First up is the battle of Mokra. The wicked Germans have panzers and dive bombers but the plucky Poles have an armoured train!  We’ve previously fought this with both Megablitz and NBC.

The Stukas didn’t show up and like our NBC game, it ends with panzers shooting up the train.

Second go. The Stukas were (very slightly) less rubbish. Panzer’s considerably more so. Clearly, the armoured train remains the weapon of the future.

A few days later the Poles launched a major counterattack on the Bzura. Again, I’ve done this with Megablitz many years ago - using these same toys!

This time the instruments of Blitzkrieg triumph in game one….

…with an almost identical story in game two!

Sidi Barrani.

Game one. Something of a walkover for the Brits.

Game two. The Italians make more of a fight of it but those bloody Matildas are nearly impossible to kill!

Great fun and nice to get some toys on the table.

Action on the River Gette - August 1914

 This was an Op14 game played in late April, using my 6mm toys and Hexon terrain.  The action involved three German corps advancing and trying to get between the bulk of the Belgian army and Brussels.  The German players  - John A, Russell and Diego had a corps each.  The opposition was Pete (aka King Albert I) and Jerry, who commanded three infantry and one cavalry divisions.

The game provided a broadly historical outcome, with the Belgians being driven off after two days of fighting and the Germans turning their left flank.  My thanks to all the players for making the day so enjoyable - and to Russell, Pete and Diego for sharing their photos.  The images are not in time order but should give a fair impression of the look of the thing.

The field of battle - representing around 600 square km of Belgium!

The Belgian cavalry div - much smaller then infantry divs, this has four cavalry regiments and a cyclist battalion.

The German left, showing IX Korps relentlessly advancing.

Belgian 3rd Div dug in and awaiting the Germans!

Late in the game - with Jerry looking more pleased then a general in full retreat should, me apparently in silent prayer, Diego in despair and John and Russell looking teutonically stolid.

Belgian frantically redeploying to the left as the Germans pile on the pressure.

King Albert's HQ near the village of St. Georges.

German air recce - the rotters!

Two corps looking very dangerous on their right wing.

Dug in Belgians repelling an ill-advised German attack.

Pressure mounts on the Belgian left.

Czecho engineers and traffic controllers

Having established a probable need for more Warpact bridging kit I had a rummage in some boxes to see what was in stock.  Quite a bit as it happened, including a Skytrex set with Zil lorries, pontoons and roadway sections.  I painted them up a Czechs as I have plans for a couple of games where they might have a role.  I used the roadway sections to form a deployed bridge and couldn't resist adding a traffic control detachment with an H&R UAZ-469, a motorcyclist and of course a man pointing!

 

Foxholes

I found a bag of these resin-cast troops in foxholes in a batch of stuff I was given a couple of years ago.  A few weeks ago I decided to try painting some.  I'd based them on small bits of card to make them easier to handle and less fragile, so there was room to flock round the edges to blend in with my Hexon terrain.  I'll probably use them to mark dismounted or dug in infantry.

 

SA-10 ‘Grumble’ (s300)

Models of big missile launchers are always good for a laugh, so it was easy to persuade myself to get this lot painted. They are 1/285 scale models made by In Service Miniatures (or ISM) which was a slightly odd range available (for it seemed only a couple of years) in the early 1990s.  The SA-10 pack would have contained one control vehicle and three TEL (transporter, erector, launcher) vehicles.  Mine came off eBay a few years ago and two of the TELs are actually resin recasts.  Still, with paint they all look the same.  

With a range of 35-40km this lot can dominate the airspace over several wargame tables!

The castings didn’t look up to much but they took paint nicely.