Up River - Vietnam Battle Report

Hello one and all,

We’re edging towards the end of February, one snowfall warning after another…although the last one did not come to fruition, there was a pretty good snowfall this past weekend. Really nice snow too, temps were -10 to -15 so the snow was nice and powdery.

Best part of the weekend, I finally get to tally a battle report for this year in a setting that was as unsnowlike as possible, welcome to the Nam. For this installment, we have the black berets of the Riverine force and the grunts of the 9th Infantry. Duncan was keen to get his boats on the table and it gave  us a chance to literally throw some random figures on the table.

As always, Chairman Mike has gotten ahead of the media curve and is already spreading his propaganda.

Forces wise: Duncan and I had 2 x infantry platoons; 1 x monitor; 1 x transport carrier; and a special forces platoon. Mike had a mix of NVA and Main Force troops with 2-ish x infantry companies; ironclad company of 5 x pt76 tanks; air defense company of 3 x AAA HMG’s; combat support platoon with 3 x recoilless rifles; and a couple of HMG companies with 3 x hmg bunkers each.

Big thing up front…the riverine forces give an interesting array of weapons (the monitor had a 40mm gun,  a few 20mm’s - 3 I think, and a short range mortar), and tanks are still an interesting foe and can be surprisingly susceptible to M72 fire.

So here we go…

The battlefield…the great plains of the Nam, lol…we’ll need more scatter next time. The Up River mission has, well a river…a couple of sections, and is a search and evacuate mission with 5 objectives for each side to get to and search (free world) or evacuate (communist).

The initial deployment has the riverine forces moving up the narrow river towards mid table. The special forces insert near a small ridge via helo insertion and Mike has his tanks on field as well as a small infantry company. He has to roll for the rest of his forces from reserve.

The tiger stripe lad green faced men move quickly to get into contact with an objective.

Duncan takes a couple of hits on the monitor from Mike’s tanks…and then replies in kind knocking a few into oblivion…around this time, both boats offload their infantry and start the move towards securing objectives.

Mike rolls really well for his reserves, not to mention where they can deploy. He sends his recoilless rifles to the backside of the hill to harass the closest infantry platoon.

I try to make my roll for the objective, 6 to successfully search…only to have Mike successfully deploy his first HMG bunker company. They throw out an impressive amount of dice and there’s a lot of space between my SOF and them…and I need to clear the objective before I can move.

SOF taking some hard hits from the bunker…another roll, still lacking 6’s…

The tanks are dealt with for the most part - 2 left chilling behind an objective…Duncan’s platoon is moving towards the objective trying to search it as well…the red dice show that some of our stands are wounded. Near the bottom, I successfully search my objective and start to move towards the recoilless rifles.

The infantry start to edge towards the 76’s to get some LAW shots…and Mike gets his second set of bunkers at the top edge. Losing a couple of stands due to incoming fire…and I’m moving closer to the rifles in the south.

You an see Mike start to move his other infantry company towards my SOF…they’ve gone to ground so have been a little harder to hit, in the end it just delayed the inevitable. You can see the wounds start to happen…

Near the north part of the table, the US infantry have run off the PT-76’s and have an infantry company of their own to contend with. And still the objective is elusive.

The VC Main Force are able to charge into contact, I think they lose a stand on defensive fire…when you’re pinned, the M79 buckshot is sure a nice bonus!! Ultimately they are overrun - ironically Mike is unable to roll 6’s for the objective as well…lol

Duncan has his own assault step and counter to go through…if I recall correctly, he chews up the NVA infantry pretty well, taking a few wounds in the process, and falls back towards the troop carrier. With a few wounds in the south, I turn thought to finishing off the recoilless rifles.

Keeping the wounded to establish a base of fire, the remainder of the platoon charges into contact, swims past the defensive fire, and scores a victory for the good guys…5 rolls for assault, 5 hits!!

The game ends at this point…with 1 objective each for Free Forces and Communist, we land at a political victory for both forces. Stars and Stripes will tell wild tales of VC blood trails, special forces heroics, and a valiant assault. Hanoi Hannah will tell of brave Vietnamese standing up to Uncle Sam as they run away leaving behind their own men…definitely sounds victorious!!

Painting Update - Empress Miniatures

Hey folks,

Hope all is well on your end, the end of the month is drawing near quite quickly so I am well past due for a painting update. I am making my way through a bunch of Team Yankee 15mm figs while also working in a few other packs and scale. Hence the title…I really like the dynamics of these Empress figures. I have recently finished some of their Chechnya range, and this time I’ve got a few from the US Rangers, US Army, and British Special Forces ranges.

Again, some very dynamic figures…and the single figs that I picked up from the US Army and British ranges are very dynamic an may well be my favourite amongst them. The figures have definitely given me a chance to retry and gain some competence with painting multicam. I’ve tried some slight variations with some element of the figures, mostly the helmets and the tac vests, but have a few more ideas in mind for the 4 others on my paint bench.

Anywho, I hope you enjoy the pics..if you’re looking for a great guide on painting Mulitcam, I would suggest going over to the Spectre Miniatures website, it is an excellent resource.

US Rangers pack...so looking at the Empress website, I've obviously mixed up the packs, so the 3 figures on the right are from pack RAN03.

The 2 figs on the left are from the US Army range (US11 and US12), the 1 on the right with the wicked Operator hair is from British Special Forces range (NZSAS1) based on real life New Zealand operator

For this realworld operator, I used some realworld inspiration...I had a pic of some CSOR operators from the Afghan Mission commemoration at Parliament Hill a few years back...the multicam pants and straight green top were a catching combination.

I gotta say, I am really happy with how this figure turned out, it painted up very nicely and the pose is extremely dynamic. Great looking figure.

Painted

15mm            10

28mm+          16, +7 (empress minis) 

Bought         120

Progress      -94

Things that make you go hmmm...

Hey Everyone,

So yeah, winter has been here my friends...yesterday afternoon it was -27C and with the wind it was a summery -42...good times were had, and I sincerely hope everyone was able to stay warm and find shelter. As of the moment, the extreme cold weather warning we've had for past couple of days has ended, and I think it will be near or above freezing tomorrow. Not that I don't mind cold weather, I do enjoy it.

Anywho, beyond that random thought, I have been on a bit of a purchase kick lately. Admittedly while I have tried to support the hobby - brick n mortar and online artists, I have not approached the same level of purchase rush as I have in my earlier years in the hobby. My pile of shame/lead mountain/plastic peaks are somewhat impressive (at least by my standards) and I've been trying to get through portions of them over the years.

Regardless, as I mentioned in my first post of the year, I had to good fortune to stumble on a discount at one of my local stores. I was kinda surprised that they had very little Battlefront stock...no Team Yankee that I can think of and very little Flames of War. Having given some deep thoughts to my Imagi-nations, I thought I'd take a look and see what I could supplement my current stocks with (I've got a good mix, but needed some vehicles to fit into the broader picture of the region). Well, I did end up picking up a couple of boxes of mid-war FoW plastics and to my surprise they were discounted 50%. Chalking this up to right place right time, I gladly paid and made my out of the store, ala IKEAs infamous 'Start the Car' commercial.

Not too long afterwards, I happened to discover another LGS in the city’s west end that I had heard about but had just never had an opportunity to get to. Well, I happened to look at their website and noticed that their TY and FoW stock was also on clearance. So, roadtrip and I ended up buying a few packs and boxes that could fit into Team Yankee, Imagi-Nations, and really any other Cold War or modern scenario that I could think of.

I asked the clerk on the way out if they were getting out of the Battlefront game and he mentioned that while they were glad to stock it, it was proving increasingly harder for them to keep that market going and to sustain the volume of stock needed to be in that part of the game. 

To be honest, I was not very surprised by this...I have seen more than a few hobby shops step into the market, buy big up front and then be unable to sustain the customer base, over price the product (one store had about a 30% markup higher than anyone one else in the city or province), or lose interest once they got past the first few buying cycles.

A bit of a score for me, but also a little disappointing to not see the local shops able to sustain the stocklists. Anywho, here's to a varied purchase plan and scheme: 

1 x TY Israeli Magach 6 box

1 x TY Israeli Mech Inf platoon

1 x TY Israeli Skyhawks

1 x TY Iran Basij Company

Painted

15mm            10

28mm+          9, 

Bought         120, +96 (as above)

Progress      -101 

Marvel Crisis Protocol - Starter Box Terrain

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on your side of the winter...which we have actually had a fair share of since the new year. In the past month we've gotten just shy of a metre of snow, thats a bit over the 3 foot mark and we're easily sitting with over 2 feet on the ground, and definitely higher where snow has been cleared. Some of the drifts are starting to get as high as cars which is always fun. Looking at the forecast, it also looks like we're getting a real couple of days of Canadian winter; the windchill is expected to be almost as low as -40 to -45, so yeah, a real Canuck winter.

So with the winter that has suddenly become, I was able to finish up the terrain pieces for the Marvel Crisis Protocol starter box - pretty pumped by hitting this milestone. I don't have a good track record for finishing off all the bits that come in the various boxes, so yeah, gonna chalk this one up as a clear victory. I'll have to get a victory photo to mark the venture.

I gotta say, between the figs, vehicles, and terrain - the starter box had a lot packed into it, and a very good value given the cost of the individual expansions and figs. These were definitely some of the larger models that I had tried painting and the Daily Bugle shop that came with the starter definitely fell into this category. Given that I painted this up between December and January AND I don't have a winter or indoor airbrush station I tackled it all by brush. 

Admittedly, it took me a bit more than I would have liked, but it was a very good challenge and an opportunity to try out various techniques. I think when all is said and done, I probably painted it 3-4 times over, lol...but again, I got to test my contrast paints, my stippling, shading, and weathering on a larger scale than I'm used to...so again, progress!

I thought I'd go with extra weathering for the Bugle...J. Jonah has to be a bit of a cheap...fellow...so I thought that would fit. And I figured its NYC, so there has to be some graffiti, and I thought it would be fairly Spiderman focused.

Anywho, enjoy the pics.

Painted

15mm            10

28mm+          9, +5 (MCP Starter Box pieces)

Bought         24

Progress      -5