Next options.

As always after a prolonged session of gaming one gets keen again and starts looking for the next armies to build. While Luke was here we went through my Czech collection to sort out what i needed to A) complete the Czechs to his exacting standard and B) add the Poles as well.
I've now found that I've lost the piece of paper somewhere.  I've also been going through the Austrians to sort out bits I'm missing (85mm AT guns bits for HQ's etc) and painting up some bits for the West Germans in the late 960's, as I have a stack of SPZ 12-3APC's that I was going to use as Austrian APC's before H&R released their new range.

I also received a purchase the day after Luke left, a 1960's wheeled recce regiment for my Brits.

Saladins, Saracens and variations on the Ferret ( it did remind me that I should really get a Fox recce regiment for the Brit territorials). This has lead to my main problem which is: what base green did I use for my existing British army when I painted it 15 odd years ago. I expect that others are well organized and have these things written down in their modeling diary's. I on the other hand just tend to grab the paint off the shelf that looks about right, and I do carry a wide selection of greens.

Question time

From the peanut galley refined followers of this blog.

"Great games chaps, what are the octagonal bases in the 1970's game?"

"There identical, but the one on the left is a bit more identical than the one on the right"

 Back when I firsty started playing the Spearhead family of rules I struggled with the Battalion HQ's. despite being forces to ride the command arrow they could be found leading attacks on the flanks, or engaged in hand-to-hand fighting in decidedly odd positions. Adding jeeps and recon afv's to the stands did not improve things. So, I lopped the corners off which has solved the problem for me. The sides are still parallel to the command arrow, but I can spot the stand from anywhere on the table.Even Dr U-S has come to the conclusion that I might have something.

Wrapping up

Dr U-S has headed off after a week of gaming. we fitted in four games of MSH, one SH game, two big battle DBA and a couple of day trips as well. Now I'm not the best at summarising battles, and Luke has been doing it on his blog. So I'm  just going to add some photos that I took.

All MSH games werwe set in the 1970's for something a bit different. less ATGW, more RCL's. 
game three was Britsh vs Polish

Ellements of 4RTR battlegroup face off against a Polish attack.

From a different angle featuring some awesome combat dice. An M113 RCL subs in for an FV432 with WOMBAT

Despite the crap dice the Polish battalion failed a moral check and evaporated.

The 4th game was my first attempt to run a Czech army vs a US force from the 3rd infantry division. I should have got some shots of this game as my M551's made their debut.
Lats game featured some West Germans again agaist the Czechs. The West Germans are an expensive list and I managed to get 28 stands on the table.I used Leopard 1A3's as I have some questions about MSH's dates for thermal imaging on tanks (Chieftain Stillbrew for example).

The view from the turret

And theres more where that came from

 The small built up areas represents a small village or farm and counts as woods for cover and spotting purposes. Marder conbat teams in a wood are very hard to shift (Def 7) and so the Czechs were pretty much 6's to suppress.So the attackers decided to get stuck in.

Fly my pretties....

Close enough for you?

I lost the game at this point by only managing to inflict one casualty in two turns across the whole board.

So, overall a good extended gaming session. I've been quite happy with the performance of my terrain boards. They do take a fair bit of work to do. However, it has been commented on by other local players that we as gamers are quite happy to spend a sizable amount of time and money on buying and painting armys, and then play on a collection of tatty felt. I feel that its a good investment. The saving in set up time alone (less than five minutes) is worth it, let alone the improved visual aspect

Public service announcement

What not to throw when firing with 4 stands at 1 target at +3.

We now return you to your scheduled program.

Time for some gaming.

With Dr U-S's arrival it was time for some gaming. but first some finishing touches. 

The town sectors are the mk 1 version of an idea I've had to make them more "playable". The building roofs are all the same height so that stands sit flat on the top. using smaller scaled buildings means that the town sectors actually look like town and not a lone farmhouse. I'm quite happy with this an so I'll have to make some masters and molds for the mk2 version.

And so it was on to the first game, Russians vs the US in the mid 1970's. The good doctor discovers that setting up to defend is not as easy as it looks. However my tactical and dice skills handed him a victory. He did attempt to steal defeat (his regimental artillery rolled 7 ones for its first 12 dice).

One Us battalion attempts to flank the Russians in the woods, while the second generously provides some target practice for the regimental anti-tank units.

US attack being swamped by the Russian conter attack following it.

 This game was played at the normal MSH groundscale which worked fine for us.

The second game was the debut of my WW2 Russian cavalry division. 100 stands strong under the scenario system. Cracking along at 9" and ignoring terrain, they were into the Germans surprisingly fast

Turn 1

Turn 2. Yee Haaaaa

It was an interesting 1st outing and with some tactical tweaking (you can't tweak the list as you get the whole division at 650 points) should be very hard to face on the table. Simple stuff like "when should one get off his horse?"

The terrain squares worked really well, with the second board setup providing different tactical challenges to the first.