5 Men at Kursk

Having enjoyed 5 Men in Normandy (5MiN) we decided to progress to the next game in the Nordic Weasel skirmish series, 5 Men at Kursk (5MaK).  A rare Sunday gaming session ensued and I'm glad it did.

First impressions:

- Where 5 NiM is a fun and almost freeplay game, 5MaK is more tactical and I was concerned about employing a squad rather than 5 guys doing their own thing

- While based on the 5MiN system (with the excellent shock/kill dice mechanic), 5MaK has more refined mechanics.  This means more ranges and a few other things which do slow the game down a little bit, but not excessively at all

- There is enough randomisation that you dont have full control of your guys, but not at all to a chaotic extent.  Instead, I felt like a Squad Leader managing the chaos.

- We played 10 with man squads easily, which didn't work well with 5MiN.  It also has vehicle rules which we will try out soon.

- Quite an enjoyable game

Kriegsmarine Squad awaits the Allied advance in the ruins of a German city

Here are a few pics of the action as we played a scenario where a 10 man British Infantry section advanced to a smaller German Squad manning an MG42 in heavy cover.

Scottish infantry advance through the forest 

Rushing up, the tommy lobbed a grenade over the wall only to find out it was a dud!
The German tossed a potato masher back, only to have it scatter back, resulting in him killing himself!

This German ended up on the wrong end of 8 inches of razor sharp Sheffield steel...

Bringing out the big Guns - Red Skull and his StG

Find 5MaK here: https://sites.google.com/site/nordicweaselgames/home/five-men-at-kursk
and a neat support site here: http://zak965.it/fivemen/hq.html

Covered by their mates, two of the lads close in to finish off the last German defenders.

28mm Winston Churchill

Normally when I get a special release figure it gets 2 mins of examination before being added to the lead pile, and thats what happened with Warlord Winston here when he arrived with my OPERATION SEALION book.  Then the other week we played the Capture Churchill scenario using Herr Flick of the Gestapo (see here) and a discussion on how to paint pin stripes ensued.  The challenge was on!

German leaflet "Sniper"

The figure is based on this iconic photo of Winston while visiting defences in Hartlepool on 21 July 1940.

Reputedly, the Tommy Gun was Winston's favourite weapon of all time.

The image was used by propagandists on both sides and clearly endures today.

Anyhow, here is my homage to the great man.  I think the trick with patterns like pinstripes or camo is not to copy it exactly but to give the impression. So less and neater stripes was likely to work better than lots of very thin one.

I went with a Black undercoat, dry brush with GW Skavenblight Dinge and then applied the stripes in GW Codex Grey.  I started with a thin brush but found it was easier to use a slightly larger one and do each stripe in one continuous stroke.

Overall, it works well but is one of those schemes that looks better at a distance than up close. The black lipped based helps tie in all the dark colours, as does the white flowers on the base, and I finished off with a glowing cigar end for a small splash of colour.

But is this the PM or Actor/Impersonator George Fowler sent to decoy Colonel Stenier?
Ether way he 'will fight them on the beaches'...

Another 5 Men in Normandy

Scene of Action -  French village of Bouzeville, somewhere in Normandy

This week at the club we played another game of 5 Men In Normandy - but this time we had 4 players each with 5 man units.  It was a lot of fun and I got to put a bunch of stuff on the table that hadn't been used in action before, which was really cool.

Red devils cautiously probe the ruin

But the Green Devils await them eagerly!

Here are some pics of the action as Brit Paras, Fallshirmjaeger and Kriegsmarine hunted each other in the burned out ruins of Bouzeville..

The Bren team moves up in support

but the MG42 in the ruins is covering the approach

Like all sailors, these Kriegsmarine chaps are looking for the pub!

It was a lot of fun, but I think we passed the sweet spot for these rules and broke them a little with our 4 player game.  Next week we will try the expanded 5 Men at Kursk which is a little less freeplay but suits larger games better.  Just enjoying trying out some new and different rules for a change.

Move up!

This didn't end so well.  The hunting horn is now hanging in a Luftwaffe mess as a trophy

Wrecked House terrain

A few months back Warlord held their annual sprue sale so I grabbed a few thing, amongst them this wrecked house.  I am slowly building up my urban terrain collection for some Arnhem/Fall of the Reich styled tables, and this will join the ruined walls and rubble that I did last year (see here)

I really enjoyed building this and followed the paint scheme on the cover to keep it brighter than my typical dull black and grey ruin.  As usual, I faced my dilemma of compromising diorama detail for wargaming utility: I don't want a clean ruin, but too much detail and detritus and the figs don't fit properly during a game.  The balance is one of personal preference of course.

Note that this kit is actually a repackaged 1/72 scale Italeri kit so it will be out of proportion to your 28mm figs.  That said, I think it works well without taking up too much space on the table and for 8 pounds for the sprue its great value.

Overall a good outcome and useful as a fortified house to hold a section of infantry or a field HQ.  I'll be looking to get another of these in next years sprue sale and build it a bit differently.

The Warlord Kit in the box, but you'll get it much cheaper waiting for the next sprue sale
https://store.warlordgames.com/products/wrecked-house